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X he Riddles of Hamlet 
and The Newest Answers 



BY 



Simon Augustine Blackmore, S. J 

A.M., Litt.D. 

AUTHOR OF "a GREAT SOUL IN CONFLICT," — 

A COMMENTARY ON SHAKESPEARE' S 

MASTER-WORK 




1917 

THE STRATFORD COMPANY 
BOSTON 






Copyright 1917 

The STRATFORD CO., Publishers 

Boston, Mass. 



The Alpine Press, Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 



Wo ©lb=TOme Jfrienb* 

a little GDofeen 
®l Jfonb Remembrance 



' There arte more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in our philosophy." 



M -8 1318 

©CM479940 







ERRATA 

P. 151, foot-note, read p. 30 for p. 36. 

P. 319, line 19, read reliance for alliance. 

P. 354, foot-note, read p. 35 for p. 51. 

P. 356, line 4, read counselors for councelors. 

P. 413, foot-note, read c VI. p. 35 for c VII. 51. 

P. 426, foot-note, read p. 233 for p. 297. 

P. 480, line 10, read fulfilling for fulfiling. 



Contents 

Page 
Preface xvii 

CHAPTER I 

Identification of Characters 

Conflicting Theories. — Sir Philip Sidney. — Hamlet Foreign to 
Shakespeare's Times. — Touches Him on Many Sides. — The 
Poet's Mental Sufferings. — Causes. — Essex and Southamp- 
ton. — Religious Dissensions and Persecutions. — Richard II. 
and Queen Elizabeth. — Julius Caesar. — Essex and Brutus. — 
Conspiracy Crushed. — Misfortunes of Friends. — Personal 
Danger. — Melancholy. — The Tragedy Revised. — The Gloomi- 
ness of Hamlet more Emphasized 1 

CHAPTER II 

Religion of Denmark in Hamlet's Day 

Christianity Introduced into Denmark. — Worshippers of Odin. — 
Harold the Christian. — Swengen. — Canute the Great. — A 
Catholic Hamlet of the Elizabethan Era. — Saxo Gram- 
maticus. — The Incarnation of Protestantism. — Refutation. — 
Thornbury. — Cardinal Newman 11 

CHAPTER III 

Is Hamlet a Positivist 

Positivism Ancient and Modern. — A Religious System. — Its 
Negations in Contrast with Hamlet's Affirmations. — "The 
Undiscovered Country. ' ' — A Misconception. — Refutation. — 
The Visible and the Invisible World. — The Common Law of 
Divine Providence 1? 

CHAPTER IV 

Is Hamlet a Pantheist 

Varied Claims. — Giordano Bruno. — Shakespeare Attends his 
Lectures. — Borrows his Philosophic" Principles. — Brief 

vii 



CONTENTS \ 

Page 
Sketch of Bruno. — Arrives in London. — Queen Bess. — Letter 
to Oxford University. — Theories Unacceptable. — Lampoons 
the University. — Assumption Refuted. — Bruno's Pantheism 
and Shakespeare's Faith Contrasted. — Christian Pan- 
theism. — The Angelic Doctor. — An Epitaph 21 

CHAPTER V 

Hamlet a Student op Philosophy in Germany 

At School in Wittenberg. — An Anachronism. — Philosophic 
Schools in Germany. — The Renaissance and Universities of 
Europe. — A Conspiracy. — Recent Discoveries. — Testimony 
of non-Catholic Authors. — Celebrated Philosophic Schools 
in Germany. — Magdeburg. — Hildesheim. — A Professor and 
Countryman of Hamlet. — In Opposition to the "Reform- 
ers" of Wittenberg 30 

CHAPTER VI 

The Age op Hamlet 

Controversy. — Skillful Legerdemain. — An Allusion. — Contradic- 
tory Ideas. — Duration of Time. — Accelerated and Retarded 
Movements. — Hamlet's Real Age. — Convincing Evidence. — 
Objection Refuted. — Age of Students in the Elizabethan 
Era. — A Disparity. — An Historic Fact. — Hamlet's Ma- 
turity. — A Compromise. 35 

CHAPTER VII 

Hamlet's Right to the Crown 

The Legitimate Heir. — Werder and Hudson. — Refutation. — Nul- 
lity of the Queen's Marriage. — Three Canonical Impedi- 
ments. — Claudius and the English Uxorcide. — An Error. — 
Case of Queen Catherine of Aragon and of Gertrude not 
Parallel. — Hamlet 's Insistence upon the Nullity of the Mar- 
riage. — His View that of Shakespeare and his Times. — The 
Catholic View. — Claudius the de facto King. — Hamlet the 
Se jure King 43 

viii 



CONTENTS 

Page 
CHAPTER VIII 

The Real or Assumed Madness of Hamlet 

Critics in Opposition. — The Court of Claudius. — Eminent Physi- 
cians. — A Modern Instance. — Shakespeare's Unaided 
Genius; Refutation. A Recent Discovery. — His Intention. 
— Striking Contrasts and Resemblances. — Lear and Ophelia; 
Hamlet and Edgar. — The Original Amleth. — Intermittent 
Flashes. — Objection Refuted. — Theory of Insanity Opposed 
to Canons of Dramatic Art. — An Insane Hamlet affords 
no Tragic Motive 53 

CHAPTER IX 

Hamlet's Alleged Defect of Character 

The Old Subjective School. — Goethe, Coleridge, Ulrici. — Objec- 
tions. — Theory of the Recent Objective School. — Klein, 
Werder. — Exposition. — A man of Action and Energy of 
Will. — The Ghost's Threefold Command. — How prove the 
Guilt of Claudius. — Christian Principles and Nature of the 
Revenge. — Cause of Delay not Subjective. — Original Amleth 
in Contrast with the Christian Hamlet. — The Former Proper 
to the Subjective School; the Latter to the Objective. The 
Recent Theory Preferable. — One Defect 63 

CHAPTER X 

The Character of Hamlet 

Divergent Opinions. — Causes. — Hamlet and Prince Hal. — Con- 
trasts and Resemblances. — In Happier Days. — Natural Dis- 
position. — Temperament. — Prudence, Self-command, Sin- 
cerity, Affection, Filial Devotion, Reverence for his Father. 
— Mental Gifts and Culture. — Love of Honesty. — Horatio. — 
Repugnance to Life at Court. — Interest, Admiration, Sym- 
pathy ■■•■' 72 



IX 



$art Bttatto 

A New Commentary on the Tragedy 
of Hamlet 

Page 
ACT I 

Scene First. 

Weird Expectations. — Attraction of the Preternatural. — Ob- 
jective Reality of the Ghost. — Horatio's Scepticism. — A 
Strange Visitor. — The Latin Tongue. — Whispered Reports. 
— "101 Cross It ".—A Good Spirit.— A Triple Appeal.— 
"The Hallowed Season." — A Christian Horace. — Popular 
Beliefs. — Horatio and a Rationalistic Critic 85 

Scene Second. 

A Public Audience. — Speech of Claudius. — Reproachful 
Bearing. — Pious Preachment. — "My Cousin and My Son". 
— "Frailty, Thy Name is Woman". — Haunting Suspicions. 
— Immersed in Grief. — Overcomes Temptation. — A Dual 
Affliction. — Incestuous Union. — A Startling Disclosure. — 
Presentiments of Evil. — Midnight Watch 100 

Scene Third. 

Calumnious Strokes. — Brotherly Affection. — Laertes ' 
Speech. — Admonition Countered. — Paternal Counsel. — Bor- 
rowed Precepts. — Instinctive Prying. — Mistrusted Love. — 
Ophelia's Bewilderment. — Hamlet's Fixed Judgment . . . 118 

Scene Fourth. 

"A Vicious Mole of Nature". — On the Ramparts of Elsi- 
nore. — Clang of Trumpets. — Moralizings. — "Angels and 

-, Ministers of Grace". — "Spirit of Health or Goblin 
damn 'd ' '. — ' ' Royal Dane ' '. — Impassioned Pleadings. — 
"I'll follow Thee".— Silent Beckoning.— A Conflict.— Reso- 
lute of Will. . . 126 

Scene Fifth. 

A Purgatorial Visitor. — A Challenge. — Nature of the Re- 
venge. — Christian Principles. — An Error. — Secrets of the 



CONTENTS 

Page 
Grave. — A Triple Complaint. — A Strict Injunction. — 
Reality of the Ghost. — A Rationalist's Argument. — A 
Sworn Resolve. — Hamlet's Tablets. — A Difficult Situa- 
tion. — Theories. — Curiosity of Friends. — "By St. Pat- 
rick." — Irish Missionaries in Northern Germany. — St. 
Patrick's Purgatory. — A Famous Pilgrimage. — Bollandists. 
— Chroniclers. — The Shakespeare of Spain. — The Crusad- 
er's Oath. — Hamlet's Insistence. — "The Fellow in the 
Cellerage." — The Philosophy of Hamlet and Horatio. — 
The Masquerade. — "The Time is out of Joint." — A Lead- 
ing Error 134 

ACT II 

Scene First. 

The Agent's Instructions. — Social Life. — A Burlesque of 
Lord Burghley. — A Special Purpose. — A Revelation. — An 
Unannounced Visitor. — Ophelia Tested. — A Secret Dis- 
closed. — Mistakes of Polonius 165 

Scene Second. 

New Arrivals. — Secret Purpose. — Ambassadors. — Anxiety 
of Polonius. — Hamlet's Letter. — A Ruse. — An Intruder. — 
A Humorous Dialogue. — The Spies. — An Error. — A Two- 
fold Norm. — A Positivist. — King and Beggar. — A Secret 
Mission. — ' ' How Like an Angel. ' ' — A Contrast. — The ' ' In- 
hibition." — Theatrical Rivalry. — Toying with Polonius. — 
Testing the Players. — Polonius a Critic. — In Mental Con- 
flict. — Man and Superman. — "The Play's the Thing." — 
"It may be the Devil." ' 176 

ACT III 

Scene First. 

Report of Spies. — Words of Irony. — A Daughter of Polo- 
nius.— "To Be or Not To Be."— A Fertile Field.— Integrity 
of Text. — No Intent of Suicide. — A Dilemma. — Hamlet and 
Claudio. — Suicides. — Not Dead but Sleeping. — "Something 
after Death. ' '— ' ' The Undiscovered Country. ' '—Non-Catho- 
lic Critics. — The Oracle of God. — "Conscience." — Courage 
or Cowardice. — "Enterprises of Great Pith and Moment." 
— A Resolution. — A Rationalist's Objection. — Freethinkers. 

xi 



CONTENTS 

Page 

— Attacks on Hamlet's Faith. — "No Friar Laurence." — 
"Let Priests Resolve His Doubts." — "An Aimless Wander- 
er after Truth." — Ignore Hamlet's Real Character. — Law- 
ful Espials. — Ophelia's Position. — "Are You Honest?" — A 
Discovery. — A Test. — A Little Lie. — A Triple Farewell. — 
1 ' Get Thee to a Nunnery. ' ' — Treatment of Ophelia^ — A New 
Stratagem 226 

Scene Second. 

Identified with Hamlet. — Idealization of Art. — Negative 
Laws. — Mystery and Miracle Plays. — A Secret Interview. — 
Friendship for Horatio. — A Secret Purpose. — Entrance of 
the Royal Party. — Plays His Role with Dexterity.— The Old 
Minister's Vanity. — Assumed Merriment. — A Prologue. — 
A Dark Puzzle. — The Mouse Trap. — Player-King and Con- 
sort. — Effect on Gertrude. — Alarm of Claudius. — A Chal- 
lenge. — Entrapped. — Hamlet 's Nervous Tension. — ' l Come ! 
Some Music!" — Unrestrained Joy. — Error of a Recent 
Critic. — An Urgent Message. — Quondam Friends. — A Tria- 
logue — A Marvellous Distemper. — Mock Civility. — "Easy as 
Lying." — Turns upon His Plaguers. — "I Will Speak Dag- 
gers." — A Nero and a Claudius. — Doubts of His Mother's 
Guilt , 283 

Scene Third. 

A Royal Stratagem. — Maternal Partiality. — Critical Errors. 
— Theoretical Catholic. — Practical Pagan. — Attempted Re- 
pentance. — "All May be Well." — Divergent Views. — "My 
Offence is Rank. "—" Pray I Cannot. "—" Enough Rain in 
Sweet Heavens." — "What's in Prayer?" — " Forgive me 
my Foul Murder." — "Try what Repentance can." — An 
Astounding Discovery. — Punishment more Fitting. — Pro- 
phetic Spirit. — Real and Fictitious Reasons. — A Twofold 
Duty. 309 

Scene Fourth. 

In Secret Interview. — A Rash Intruder. — Thunders in the 
Index. — Gertrude's Innocence or Guilt. — Her Moral Sense. 
— A Contrast. — ' ' King of Shreds and Patches. ' ' — A Comic 
Stock-character. — A Ghostly Visitor.— Most Opportune. — 

xii 



CONTENTS 

Page 
Contradictory Views. — "Confess Yourself to Heaven." — 
The Visor Lifted.— Master the Devil.— A Method.— The Fate 
of Polonius. — A Caution. — Marshalled to Knavery. . . . 330 

ACT IV 

Scene First. 

Interchanging Movements. — Certain Critics. — Maternal In- 
genuity. — The King 's Alarm. — Spies Summoned 353 

Scene Second. 

Royal Sponges. — A Trialogue. — Galling Sarcasm. — Fox- 
Hunting 357 

Scene Third. 

"A Cherub That Sees Them."— Fears of Claudius.— Con- 
vocation of Council. — Witticisms. — A New Project. — 
\ Angels. — The King's Treachery. — Show of Affection. — 
Claudius Humiliated. — A Refutation. — Effect of Hamlet 's 
Blunder. — His Reasons for Departure. — Claudius in Solilo- 
quy , . . 360 

Scene Fourth. 

Mental Conflict. — Man and Superman. — An Army on the 
March. — Contrasts. — No Parity. — Conclusion 368 

Scene Fifth. 

Sweet Rose of May. — The Queen 's Obstinacy. — Pleadings of 
Horatio. — A Poetical Creation. — Nursery Rhymes. — Recent 
Memories — Fears and Forebodings. — An Insurrection. — Evil 
Traits of Laertes. — Claudius at His Best. — Underdone on 
the Modern Stage. — A Bold Front. — Laertes Dumbfounded. 
— Wrath Allayed. — A "Document in Madness." — Ophelia's 
Entrance. — Meaningless Refrains. — A Conjecture. — Asso- 
ciation of Ideas. — Language of Flowers. — ' ' He made a Good 
End."— Reenkindled Grief 372 

Scene Sixth. 

A Successful Counterplot. — A Mysterious Letter. — Safe 
Again in Denmark. — The Incident of the Pirate Ship and 
the Subjective School. — Convincing Evidence 389 

xiii 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Scene Seventh. 

In Repentant Mood. — Conspirators in Secret Conference. — 
Feelings of Disgust. — Shattered Dreams. — A Specious Plot. 
— A Cunning Tactician. — ' ' Cut His Throat in the Church. ' ' 
— Right of Sanctuary. — Its History. — Triple Knavery. — 
Alacrity of Laertes. — Flurried Spirits. — A Poetical Descrip- 
tion.— The Queen's Grief 394 

ACT V 

Scene First. 

Christian Burial. — A Remarkable Change. — The Grave-dig- 
^ gers' Dispute. — A Modern Instance. — "Make the Grave 
Straight.'' — Unexpected Visitors. — "The Pate of a Poli- 
tician."— A Trial of Wit.— "An Absolute Knave."— 
Princely Courtesy. — Yorick's Skull. — Moralizings on Vani- 
ties of Life. — Ophelia's Funeral. — A Bombastes Furioso. — 
Divergent Criticism. — Discrepancy in Text. — Three Serious 
Errors. — Buried with Full Catholic Ritual Service. — A Cap- 
tious Critic. — Refutation. — The Original Text Free from 
Contradictions. — The Poet in Error or Our Text is Corrupt. 
■ — "Sweets to the Sweet." — Boisterous Exaggeration. — 
"What, the Fair Ophelia! ' ' — Leaps into the Grave. — Grap- 
plings and Curses. — A Challenge. — Sham Love Vanquished 
by True Love. — Maternal Solicitude. — Trepidation of 
Claudius 405 

Scene Second. 

A Private Conference. — A Thrilling Story. — The Secret 
Packet. — ' ' A Divinity that Shapes our Ends. ' ' — Man 's Free 
Will. — Influence of Undesigned Incidents. — Under the 
Guidance of Providence. — Fate of the Spies. — Objective 
Views. — Common Opinion. — Solution Arises from Hamlet's 
Moral Views. — ' ' The Interim. ' ' — Silence of Standard Criti- 
cism. — Surprising Revelations. — Imminent Presence of 
Death. — Spirit of Atonement. — "A Difference in Each 
Other's Wrong." — Envoy of the Conspirators. — "Fools 
Circuitous or Rampant." — The Water-fly. — A Type. — 
Laertes ' Panegyrist. — An Urgent Summons. — Fitness of the 
King. — Presentiments of Evil. — Sublime Faith. — Fatalism. 

xiv 



CONTENTS 

Page 
— A Common Error. — Reconciliation. — Entrance of Royal 
Party. — A Play on the Word Madness. — Nobility and Base- 
ness in Contrast. — Satirical Strokes. — The Contest. — The 
Unbated and Poisoned Blade. — Claudius in Joyful Mood. — 
A Precaution. — The First Bout. — Pathetic Situation. — A 
Safeguard. — The Second Trial. — A Fat or Lean Hamlet. — 
Burbage. — The Queen's Imprudence. — The Third Bout. — 
Time for Fatal Stroke Prearranged. — A Scuffle. — Laertes 
Loses the Unbated and Poisoned Sword. — Caught in their 
Own Snare. — "Treachery, Seek it Out!" — Latent Energy 
Unloosed. — Overtaken by Nemesis. — Unmasked in Open 
Court. — Witnesses, Judge, Executioner. — Mutual Forgive- 
ness. — Stays the Folly of Horatio. — Last Will. — Dying Mo- 
ments. — "Farewell, Heaven Receive My Soul." — Startling 
v Revelations 434 

EPILOGUE 

An Enigma. — Thoughts Troubled and Perplexed. — Effect 
Different upon the Christian and Unbeliever. — Revealed 
Truths Deeply Graven on the Poet's Mind. — Heighten the 
Moral Scope and Significance of The Tragedy. — Solve Its 
Mysteries. — The Hero's Soul not Avowedly, yet Assuredly 
at Stake. — The Struggle of the Man and Superman II- 
* lumined by the Light of Christian Revelation Loses all 
Mystery.— His not the "Be All and the End All here."— A 
Silent and Mysterious Power Invisibly at Work throughout 
The Tragedy. From the Spirit World a Visitor Dominates 
The Hero's Thoughts and Actions. — Angels in fine Bear 
Away his Soul to eternal Rest in that "Undiscovered 
Country" Where "The Happy Smile, the Cursed Damn'd." 
There Reigns ' ' Even-handed Justice. " 485 

Appendix 491 



xv 



Preface 

The interest inherent in The Tragedy of Hamlet is peren- 
nial. As Shakespeare 's most popular work, it continues to-day 
as in centuries past to captivate men's minds and to awaken 
their deepest sympathies. Other tragedies may equal it in 
beauty of imagery, in richness of plot, and in variety of char- 
acters, but there is one trait by which it excels all others, 
and that unique trait marks it distinctly as a tragedy of 
thought. 

It is a mine of profound wisdom. "It is a work of such 
prophetic design," says Gervinus, "and of such anticipation 
of the growth of the human mind that it has been understood 
only, and appreciated after the lapse of three centuries. ' ' The 
hero under difficulties insurmountable moves with magnificent 
intellect in isolation and towering prominence against hate- 
ful and opposing forces, and exposes to our view the psycho- 
logical action of the mind under strange and conflicting in- 
fluences. He is himself the tragedy. He is a universal type 
of man's endless anxiety when, stripped of the delusive hopes 
of the present life and harassed by the personal sense of his 
helplessness, he is brought alone face to face with the silent 
and mysterious world of destiny. 

Hamlet is in a manner the most typical work of Shake- 
speare. In it as in no other are blended his genius and his 
personality. Written near the close of Elizabeth's reign, it 
was often revised during the ensuing years while he was suffer- 
ing acute oppression of mind and heart. Hence it is imbued 
with his melancholy, and reflects his world-weariness and 
sense of the foulness, emptiness, and fleetingness of life. 
"How," asks a critic, "could a man delineate a Hamlet, a 

xvii 



PREFACE 

Coriolanus, a Macbeth, so many suffering heroic hearts, if his 
own heroic heart had never suffered V 9 

If then the tragedy reflect the poet's own experience and 
be the growth of his own mature judgment concerning the 
realities of life ; if it picture the thoughts and actions of the 
hero under all the circumstances in which he moves and lives, 
as well as the religion and moral principles that dominate 
these same thoughts and actions; it should surely be treated 
in more than a conventional way, in a way, which instead of 
giving rise to doubts and difficulties, shall attempt to expose 
the mysteries that gem-like enrich the most glorious drama 
of Christian thought in modern times. 

Hamlet is not professedly a religious drama. But if we 
consider that it is replete with religious thoughts and fre- 
quent allusions to an invisible power, supreme over human 
affairs; that its action begins with a preternatural visitor 
from the spirit world, and closes with the supernatural idea 
of angels bearing away a human soul to eternal rest; it is 
clear that Shakespeare has enriched this tragedy more than any 
other with religious elements of uncommon interest. Carlyle 
has not hesitated to say that "the poet and his era, as the 
outcome and flowerage of all which had preceded it are at- 
tributable to the Catholicism of the Middle Ages. The 
Christian Faith which was the theme of Dante's song, had 
produced this practical life which Shakespeare was to sing. 
For religion then as it now and always is, was the soul of 
practice ; the primary vital fact in man 's life. ' ' 

If then Hamlet's religion was the soul of practice, the 
primary vital fact of his life, is it not surprising that its 
supreme influence should be commonly ignored? Any one 
who is an adherent of the Faith of the hero and acquainted 
with the history of English literature of the last three cen~ 

xviii 



PREFACE 

turies, must recognize the utter hopelessness of looking for 
a truthful and adequate presentation of the Prince 's religious 
beliefs and practices. The more noted commentators, true 
enough, readily admit that he was a "very religious man"; 
but, unlike Carlyle, they seem to forget that the same Faith 
was his soul of practice and the primary fact of his life. 
Their commentaries, therefore, while most excellent in other 
respects, are unsatisfactory on the score of Hamlet's religion. 
Some ignore it altogether; others, failing to grasp its con- 
trolling influence, accord it but slight and incidental treat- 
ment; others whose religion is based on the principle of pri- 
vate judgment, measure his Faith with their own, and mis^ 
judge him from a lack of correct information concerning the 
true nature of his tenets; others whose sole knowledge of 
the Church has been imbibed from hostile sources, asperse 
and malign his religion, and misrepresent its sway upon him ; 
others again who reject all belief in Christianity and align 
themselves with one or other of the schools of Freethought, 
confound his Faith with that of the many Christian sects, and 
while decrying all dogmatic truths of divine revelation, are 
ever ready to dogmatize against all things Christian. It 
would indeed be strange and a thing unheard-of, if under 
such conditions writers with minds thus indifferent, or ob- 
scured, or prejudiced, or hostile, were to give a just appre- 
ciation of a character whose thoughts and deeds are largely 
controlled by his Faith and its principles of morality. 

This indifferentism and misapprehension concerning a 
most important element of the tragedy, the author purposes 
to expose, and, moreover, to exhibit how the hero's religion 
wields a paramount influence in the development of the 
drama. No one can hope to attain a correct understanding of 
Hamlet unless he view, as far as possible, its action and per- 



PREFACE 

sonages with the eyes of Shakespeare himself. He, as is well 
known, was familiar with the teachings and moral principles 
of the olden Church, and having once decided to make his 
hero a firm adherent of that Faith, he, a master artist, ob- 
served the law of consistency, and portrayed him in conformity 
therewith. But the Faith of His "most religious hero" is not 
mere emotion, nor sentiment, nor a something extrinsic, which, 
as a mantle, may be thrown on or off at pleasure. It is an 
intrinsic force. It is the primary vital fact of his life and 
the animating principle of his thoughts and actions; for, 
rooted in his intellect, enthroned in his will, and enshrined in 
his heart, it governs him in every crisis of conflicting interests 
and passions. 

Hence, the exposition of this mastery will not only il- 
lumine, to a great extent, the many obscurities of the tragedy, 
but also save the reader, on the one hand, from a mere sub- 
jective concept of the hero, as an abstract or ideal personage, 
fashioned and colored according to the whim and fancy of 
each individual, and, on the other, hinder him from confining 
his attention solely to the externals of the man whom he con- 
siders the victim of chance, impulse, moods, and accidents. 
The comprehension of this grand central principle which ani- 
mates and controls Hamlet's mind and heart, brings him more 
distinctly before us in a close and intimate relation; throws 
new light on his life, thoughts, acts, and sentiments; and, 
by disclosing the secret and invisible mainsprings of his move- 
ments, opens to our view a clearer vision of the mind of the 
hero and his creator, and so affords a solution of the several 
riddles which otherwise seem insoluble. 

The author has not confined himself to a mere com- 
mentary. The nature of the work, he felt, required him to 
present pen-portraits of the various characters, not, indeed, in 



PREFACE 

accordance with popular fancy, but as mirrored in the text 
of the tragedy; to examine many opposing and misleading 
opinions of celebrated commentators, in order to expose in 
the light of the principles established, their discordance with 
the religious belief of Hamlet. 

Part First is preliminary, and deals with many questions 
which, because of their important and intimate connection 
with The Tragedy, require a special and fuller treatment. 
Among them are the invalidity of Gertrude 's marriage, Ham- 
let 's right to the crown, his feigned madness, his commonly 
alleged vacillation and defective power of will, his character, 
as well as his religion and philosophy. All these present dit- 
ficulties, the solution of which will throw light upon the new 
point of view taken by the author, and in consequence lead 
to a clearer understanding of Part Second, or the commentary 
proper. 

The book with its many new solutions may perhaps merit 
the attention of all who are desirous of reading something 
new upon the most popular of Shakespeare's tragedies. If 
the perusal of its pages aiford to these lovers of the Bard of 
Avon even a small degree of interest, or entertainment, or 
illumination, the author shall deem himself well rewarded. 

The work is mainly based on materials gathered together 
by the author during many years for the purpose of lectures 
given both in college courses and in public. When any one 
writes on Shakespeare he naturally is indebted to a host ot 
scholars who for more than a century have delved in the same 
literary field of criticism, and it is next to impossible for him 
to state each source from which he derived his information. 
Where, however, the author has consciously availed himself of 
previous works, he acknowledges his obligation, and this in 
particular to the Variorum Shakespeare of Dr. Furness. 

St. Ignatius College, Cleveland Ohio. 

xxi 



CHAPTER I 

Identification of Characters 

Attempts have been made to identify the characters of 
Hamlet with actual men and women of Shakespeare's day. 
If one critic holds that the hero is throughout a satire on 
the famous essayist, Montaigne, another is equally certain 
that the whole tragedy is a veiled picture of the relations 
between the Queen of Scots, Darnley, Bothwell and James I. 
Other theorists identify Hamlet with Sir Philip Sidney; 
Polonius with Lord Burghley; Laertes and Ophelia with 
Robert and Anne Cecil; and Bernardo with Sir Walter Ra- 
leigh. According to another theory, the dramas of Shake* 
speare, whether comedies or tragedies, are largely Aristo- 
phanic in their intent, and are filled with topical sketches 
and allusions to which in many cases the clue is now lost. 
These theories, though entertaining to the curious reader, 
seem with the exception of that in regard to Sir Philip Sid- 
ney and Lord Burghley to have little objective reality, and 
to be the product of a playful imagination, rather than of 
sound critical judgment. 

It is, however, highly probable that in moulding the 
character of the melancholy Dane, Shakespeare took a con- 
temporary as a model in certain traits. Sir Philip Sidney 
had a remarkable personality, and was the most accomplished 
courtier of the Elizabethan era. He was curiously lacking in 
the characteristic blitheness of his times, and looked by prefer- 
ence on the gloomy side of things. Like Hamlet, he was a 
scholar and an idealist, and, living in an uncongenial en- 
vironment, was ever striving in vain to escape from it into 
a life of action ; and again, like Hamlet, in the lingering and 
futility of his later years, which were due in a great measure 

[1] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

to the force of external circumstances, may be clearly traced 
the Dane's apparent irresolution and impotence of will. 1 

Sidney was a special favorite of "Queen Bess," and. 
when wishing to sail with Sir Francis Drake on an expedi- 
tion against the Spaniards in the West Indies, was expressly 
forbidden, because of Elizabeth's anxiety, "lest she should 
lose the jewel of her dominions." Though no brilliant 
achievement illustrated his short life, the singular beauty of 
his character won for him the universal love and esteem of 
his countrymen. "The nobility of his nature and the win- 
ning courtesies in which its gentle magnanimity expressed 
itself, took captive all hearts while he lived, and have since 
kept sweet his memory. Sublimely mild, a spirit without 
spot, he lives in the history of his country as a rare and 
finished type of English character, in which the antique honor 
of chivalry is seen shading into the graces of a modern gentle- 
man. His sonnets are of rare merit; and his Arcadia is a 
work of indisputable genius, flushed with the light of a fine 
imagination, and its purity and tenderness of sentiment gives 
an authentic reflex of the lovely moral nature of the 
writer." 2 The universal esteem in which he was held was 
strikingly manifested at his death, when a general mourning 
was observed throughout the country. Another parallel is 
noted in the plaintive verses of the wits and poets of his day. 
They lament him, "The prince of noblesse and chivalry," in 
language, which naturally suggests Ophelia's moaning over 
her distracted lover : 

"Oh, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! 

The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword, 

Th' expectancy and rose of the fair state, 

The glass of fashion and the mould of form. 

Th' observed of all observers, quite, quite down!" 

Others, again, see in Hamlet a reflex of Shakespeare him- 
self. The Prince is generally conceded to be in advance of 

i Of. E. K. Chambers' "Hamlet", Introd. 
2 Fox Bourne's "Memoirs of Sir Sidney". 

[2] 



IDENTIFICATION OF CHARACTERS 

his age. It may, then, well be questioned how came the 
Poet to create a character so foreign to the spirit of his 
times? In the light of history, we are wont to view the 
Elizabethan era as ardent and vigorous. It was animated 
by a spirit which, restless at home, looked abroad, and, en- 
amored of maritime greatness, reached out to enterprises of 
discovery and colonization. Laertes rather than Hamlet was 
its exponent. The national life, wholly absorbed in material 
growth and development, was little troubled with vexed ques- 
tions and intellectual subtleties. What, therefore, so stirred 
the Poet's soul as to prompt him to create a character so 
remarkable and born out of time ? 

"We know that Shakespeare was not Hamlet, but, never- 
theless, he seems to touch him on many sides. "The con- 
centration of interest, the intensity of feeling, the hushed pas- 
sion which characterize the play, make us feel that it has some 
exceptionally close relation to the Poet's own experience, 
and that, in an unusual degree, his personality pervades 
it." 3 Is there perhaps something to connect the tragedy with 
the happenings of his own life and the development of his 
own spirit ? Is there anything in the fact that it was pro- 
duced in the tragic period of his dramatic labors and im- 
mediately precedes his two most sombre dramas? In their 
creation, we seem to see the creator's world- weariness re- 
flected, and to catch his repeated sighs for a peaceful rest 
from the turmoil of a religious persecution which was harass- 
ing so many of his friends. 

Commentators are in agreement that a dark shadow had 
fallen upon the Poet, overclouding his spirits, and filling his 
mind with gloom. He was stirred to his inmost soul, and, 
in the grand series of tragedies composed at this period, re- 
veals the thoughts and feelings then most agitating his 
troubled mind. In them he struggles with the stern realities 
of life as he felt them under the political abuses and religious 

3 Mabie: "Shakespeare, Poet, Dramatist, and Man". 

[3] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

persecution of the day ; in them he emphasizes the weaknesses 
of human-kind in its baseness, lawless lust, ungoverned jeal- 
ousy, serpent-like ingratitude, disregard of human rights, 
and shameless treachery ; and over all he holds, as a moralist, 
the terrors of conscience and the unfailing vengeance of 
the sword of fate. 4 Some commentators ignore the cause 
of this gloom as something unfathomable, others assign only 
partial reasons, and others again explain it in a manner 
wholly unsatisfactory. This, no doubt, is due to one-sided 
views, which arise from the perusal of imperfect or distorted 
histories of those troublesome times. But modern authors, 
less biased and more critical, enable the open-minded reader 
to see light amid darkness. Former historians, following in 
the wake of their predecessors, were accustomed to re- 
peat the story of the golden days of Elizabeth, and to portray 
with magic pencil the unprecedented happiness of her people. 
The sunlit cloud, however, bears a very dark side, as is shown 
by the dismal picture drawn by Catholic writers of the same 
period. 

The nation was divided by religious dissensions into op- 
posite parties of almost equal numbers, the oppressed and 
the oppressor. The operation of the penal statutes had 
ground many ancient and opulent families to the dust; and, 
enriched by their impoverishment, new families had sprung 
up in their place; and these, as they shared the plunder, 
naturally eulogized the new anti-Catholic system to which 
they owed their wealth and ascendency. But their prosperity 
was not the prosperity of the nation ; it was that of one half 
obtained by the legalized robbery of the other. It is evident 
that neither Elizabeth nor her ministers understood the 
benefits of civil and religious liberty. 6 The great stain 
on the character of Elizabeth, affirms Macaulay, 6 is the fact 
that, being herself an Adiaphorist without scruples about 

* Cf. Furnival apud Gervinue, Introduction. 

5 Of. "Lingard's History of England", vol. VI, C. 9, p. 664. (Edinburgh 

Edition.) 

6 Essays, "Lord Burghley and his Times". 

[4] 



IDENTIFICATION OF CHARACTERS 

conforming to the Catholic Church when conformity was ex- 
pedient, she yet subjected that Church to a persecution even 
more odious than that of her sister Mary. ' ' The persecutions 
of her reign," writes Hallam, "were often most infamously 
conducted. In fact, our courts of justice were little better 
than a cavern of murderers. ' ' 

To see that Hamlet's gloom reflects the Poet's own, it 
is necessary to glance at that period of his life. When in 
1586 Shakespeare fled to London to escape the persecution 
of the hated Puritan, Sir Lucy, it is more than likely that 
he was implicated in the religious turmoil of the times. 7 He 
found the city a seething caldron of civil and religious strife. 
The Catholic gentry, notwithstanding the patriotism which 
prompted them to stand with the government against the 
friendly Catholic king of Spain, were still groaning under the 
pressure of incessant persecution. 8 A spirit of unrest was 
prevalent, and mutterings of discontent were heard on every 
side. Elizabeth was accused of being under the thumb of her 
favorites, Leicester and Burghley. Though the Earl of 
Essex, after the death of Leicester, held the first place in 
the affections of the Queen, he was for many reasons in open 
opposition to Burghley, her prime-minister. With the hope 
of deposing him from power, he reckoned on the aid of the 
old nobility, who were suffering from oppression; upon a 
body of merchants, smarting under confiscations; and upon 
the severely persecuted Catholics, who looked on him as their 
bitterest enemy. With Essex, the leader of the party, was 
associated the Earl of Southampton. If the former, the 
greatest patron of learning in his day, was a warm friend 
of the Poet, still more so was the latter, to whom, as to an 
intimate friend and most lavish patron, Shakespeare dedi- 

7 "Shakespeare's Family" by C. Stopes, C. VIII. 

8 "During this period, 142 priests were put to death, because of the exercise of 

their religious ministry; 90 more died prisoners in the Tower, while of 
the nobility and other distinguished laity 62 suffered martyrdom. Hundreds 
of the Catholic gentry, and thousands of the lower classes were fined into 
poverty, imprisoned, whipped, or had their ears pierced with hot irons for 
consience sake". (Guggenberger, "General History of the Christian Era". 
Vol. II, p. 296.) 

[5] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

cated his chief poems. Essex, as an advocate of the liberal 
principle of religious toleration, had won over the Catholic 
party by openly proclaiming that "it was not an essential 
part of the reform worship, to persecute Catholics to death 
on account of their religion." His associate, Southampton, 
was cradled amid Catholic surroundings; and the traditional 
associations of his family, as well as his known friendship 
with Essex, naturally led the Catholic party to look upon the 
one and the other, as leaders in their attempt to regain free- 
dom of religious worship. 

With these noble patrons, Shakespeare aligned himself. 
To promote their cause, by voicing popular discontent and 
by propagating the idea of deposing the minister of Eliza- 
beth, he wrote his drama, The Uncrowning of Richard II? 
In this play, the king is pictured as a mere puppet in the 
hands of worthless and ignoble favorites. The kingdom is 
bought and sold. England once glorious for conquests 
abroad, is now shamefully conquered at home by miscreant 
ministers, who in rapacity have leased out the realm like a 
"paltry farm." This drama, winning popularity, was re- 
peatedly enacted, and even attracted the notice of the Queen 
and her ministers. In witnessing the play, Elizabeth recog- 
nized her proxy, and exclaimed to Lombarde and her at- 
tendants, "Know ye not that I am Richard the Second?" 10 
Burghley also felt that it reflected and caricatured his own 
policy of government. At his death in 1598, he was succeeded 
by Cecil, who continuing his father's course, was even more 
energetic in opposition to Essex. 

It is remarkable that about this time, after Richard II 
had become somewhat trite, Shakespeare's new tragedy of 
similar import, was enacted upon the London stage. In 
Julius Caesar, noble patriots conspire the destruction of a 
man who at the expense of the people's rights and liberties, 
ambitioned absolute sovereignty. Nothing tended more than 

9 Richard Simpson: "Politics of Shakespeare's Historical Plays". 
10 Fleay: "The Chronicle History of the London Stage". 

[6] 



IDENTIFICATION OF CHARACTERS 

this drama, to promote the cause of Essex and his party. 
The usurper, in the eyes of Shakespeare's friends, was Cecil, 
who by his ascendency over the mind of Elizabeth, ruled as 
virtual sovereign, whose word was law, whose favorites en- 
joyed the great monopolies that oppressed the people, and 
in whose hands were their lives, their fortunes, and their 
liberties. By picturing the hated and ambitious Cecil in his 
supremacy, insolent, autocratic, and susceptible of the gross- 
est flattery, the drama at once familiarized the popular mind 
with the odiousness of tyranny. This idea is inculcated in 
many passages, only a few of which are culled at random: 

"Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed 
That he is grown so great V 

"Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world 
Like a colossus, and we petty men 
Walk under his huge legs and peep about 
To find ourselves dishonorable graves." 

"Age, thou art ashamed! 

Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods! 
When could they say till now, that talked of Rome, 
That her wide walls encompassed but one man 1 ?" 

"Ye gods, it doth amaze me! 
A man of such a feeble temper should 
So get the start of the majestic world 
And bear the palm alone." 

Brutus, on the other hand, the hero of the tragedy and 
chief conspirator, the Poet so ennobles and glorifies as to win 
for him our sympathy and admiration. But in the eyes of 
the conspirators of 1601, Essex was the noble Brutus, who 
preferred death to loss of liberty. "The noblest Roman," 
one of the grandest of Shakespeare's creations, is incapable 
of self-seeking, and, stirred by the loftiest patriotism, is 
the reflex of every virtue. To emphasize his own high appre- 
ciation of the chief conspirator, the prototype of Essex, his 
noble patron, the Poet closes the drama with Marc Anthony's 

[7] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

transcendent praise of Brutus in words that reach the limits 
of laudation: 

"This was the noblest Roman of them all. 
His life was gentle; and the elements 
So mixed in him that Nature might stand up, 
And say to all the world, 'This was a man'." 

To elude suspicion, the principals in the conspiracy were 
accustomed to assemble at Drury House, the residence of 
the Earl of Southampton. 11 Here Shakespeare and his friends 
were likewise wont to gather. During this period, arrange- 
ments were made with his company to present Richard II, 
for the purpose of enkindling the patriotism of the con- 
spirators. 12 

The attempted insurrection was, however, crushed by 
the iron hand of Cecil. Several of Shakespeare's most inti- 
mate associates were involved in its fateful consequences. In 
addition, the circle of young nobles whose friendship he had 
fondly prized was shattered. The Earl of Pembroke, his 
younger patron, was banished from the court ; the Earl of 
Essex was adjudged a traitor, and died upon the scaffold; 
and the Earl of Southampton, his long trusted friend and 
idol, was sent a prisoner to the Tower, where in daily danger 
of execution, he languished until the succession of James 
the First in 1603. 

These misfortunes, so personal to Shakespeare, caused 
a thick gloom to settle upon his mind. Truly, "the times 
Were out of joint." The world had grown dark around him. 
His nature, so sensitive to the touch of evil and of good, 
and so susceptible of the strongest friendship, was acutely 
stirred by the sufferings and loss of his cherished friends; 
and, in consequence, his mind and feelings underwent a 
phase of bitter anguish and unrest. This fact is evidenced 
by the sudden change in the character of his dramas. His 

" Cf. Lingard: "History of England", Vol. VI, c. IX, p. 607. 

12 "Camden's Annals"; Lord Bacon's official papers concerning "The Treason 
of Robert Earl of Essex". 

[8] 



IDENTIFICATION OF CHARACTERS 

fresh joyousness, his keen delight in life and in friendship, 
and his frank trust in beauty and in goodness, which breathe 
throughout his earlier works, now yield to disappointment, 
to disillusion, to a new sense of evil, and the foulness that 
underlies so much of human life. The misfortune of his 
friends and patrons engulfs him in gloom; and his afflicted 
mind turns to the contemplation of the mournful world of 
tragedy. From his mighty dramas we may learn something 
of his own unrest and anguish of mind at the sight of his 
cherished friends falling around him one by one amid the 
turbulence of political and religious persecution. 13 

Shakespeare, moreover, had other troubles and anxieties 
of mind. He must have trembled at the time of the Essex 
conspiracy, not only for Southampton's life, but even for 
his own ; for Philips, the manager of his company, was called 
before the Privy Council to account for the performance 
of the obnoxious tragedy of Richard II. It was declared 
treasonable, and was prohibited from further exhibition. 
His company lost favor with the Government, and were 
"inhibited" from playing more in London. In the interim, 
Shakespeare travelled with his company through the "Prov- 
inces," and, as stated in the title page of the First Quarto, 
played Hamlet at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. 
This production was the first copy of the drama, which in 
the meanwhile, as is affirmed in the reprint of the play of 
1604, he elaborated "and enlarged to almost as much again." 

With mind overclouded with deep melancholy, he had 
turned to his Tragedy of Hamlet; therein at least he could 
freely and fittingly give expression to his grief of mind and 
heart. This is clear from the fact that his "enlargement" 
of the play does not materially affect the plot and the im- 
portant incidents of the first copy, but rather the subjective 
elements of Hamlet's character. Hence, the Prince's over- 
powering grief and oppressive melancholy; his sense of 

13 Cf. Greene: "History of the English People", Bk. VI, C. VII. 

[9] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

tedium; his heartache and weariness of life; his distrust of 
fellowmen who seem the slaves of passion, self-interest and 
duplicity; his disgust for a world which appears "a sterile 
promontory" whose very atmosphere is rife with pestilential 
vapors ; all these are feelings more insisted on, and repeatedly 
expressed in varied forms in the new soliloquies of the 
Second Quarto: 

"The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune/ ' 

"The heartache and the thousand natural shocks 
That flesh is heir to." 

"The whips and scorns of time, 

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, 

The insolence of office, and the spurns 

That patient merit of the unworthy takes." 

"I have of late lost all my mirth, and indeed it goes 
so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the 
earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this o'erhanging 
firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, 
appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent 
congregation of vapors." 

"How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable, 

Seem to me all the uses of this world! 

Fie on't! oh fie! 'tis an unweeded garden, 

That grows to seed ; things rank and gross in nature 

Possess it merely." 

"But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue. ' ' 

The development of the contemplative side of Hamlet's 
character, was necessarily tempered by the Poet's own 
mental grief and gloom and, therefore, must have been a task 
not only easy, because a mere reflection, or a bodying forth 
of his own heated mind; but also pleasing because affording 
a relief in the utterance of the pent-up griefs and sorrows 
of his overburdened heart. As a consequence, the drama 
seems to reflect the gloomy thoughts and feelings which at 
this time afflicted the Poet's own life. 

[10] 



CHAPTER II 

The Religion of Denmark in 
Hamlet's Day 

From various references in the play, it is evident that 
Hamlet's existence is ascribed to a period of time when, in 
the early part of the eleventh century, England acknowledged 
the suzerainty of Denmark. The first Danish invasion of 
England in the year 994 was led by Swengen, king of Den- 
mark. After ravaging Kent, Essex and Sussex with im- 
punity, he was bought off by king Aethelred on the condition 
of paying an annual tribute tax, known as Danegelt. But, 
when Aethelred in 1002 had by secret letters to every city and 
town ordered the slaughter on St. Brice's day of all the 
Danes resident in England, his treachery aroused the Danes 
to vengeance. Swengen swore a solemn oath to conquer the 
kingdom. Landing again with a powerful force in 1003, the 
Danish king began devastating the land anew ; and only after 
every means of defence had been exhausted, and the spirit 
of the nation was crushed, did Aethelred agree to an in- 
creased annual Danegelt tax of 40,000 pounds. But distrust- 
ful of Aethelred and mindful of his solemn oath, he deter- 
mined upon the complete conquest of England, and in the 
year 1013 returned with a more powerful fleet for the third 
invasion. After his death in the following year, his son, 
Cnute the Great, continued the war of conquest, and in 1016 
was crowned king of a vast Northern empire, which included 
England, Wales, Norway and Denmark. 

Of no less interest is the question of the religion of 
Denmark in the days of Hamlet. When Harold, driven 
from his kingdom in the year 826, found refuge with the 
German emperor at Metz, he was with his queen converted 

[11] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

to the Christian faith. Beturning to Denmark, he invited 
Ansger and Audibert, monks of Corbie in Gaul, to accompany 
him for the purpose of preaching the gospel to the Danes. 
Harold's efforts to Christianize his people soon roused the 
enmity of his pagan subjects, and he was again expelled from 
the country. Little progress was made for years among this 
restless and warlike people, and often they subjected the 
infant Church to the severest persecution, first under king 
Horic, and then under Gorm the Old. When the latter, a 
fanatical worshipper of Odin, had succeeded in extending his 
power over Jutland, he raged with fire and sword against 
the Christians. But he met his master in Henry I. of Ger- 
many, who, having conquered him in a bloody battle in 934, 
forced him at least to tolerate Christianity in his realm. 

His son, Harold, upon accession to the throne, became 
more favorable ; for after his defeat by Otto the Great in 949, 
he was compelled to acknowledge the supremacy of Christian 
Germany. Persuaded that the Danes would never desist from 
their hostile incursions while they persevered in the religion 
of their ancestors, a religion which was calculated to nourish 
a ferocity of temper and animate to military exploits, Otto 
included in the treaty of peace the condition that Harold 
and his subjects accept the Christian religion. 

In fact, writes the ancient chronicler, Saxo Grammaticus, 
Harold had been early drawn to the Catholic faith. His 
mother, Thyra, the daughter of the first Christian Harold, 
had received baptism in 965. During his reign of fifty years, 
Christianity, aided by the king's religious zeal, made much 
progress in the realm; but this progress eventually excited 
against him the enmity of his pagan subjects. They still 
formed the most powerful party in the state, and in 986 
effected his abdication in favor of his son, the famous Swen- 
gen. To reward the good will of his pagan subjects, the 
new monarch manifested his zeal for the worship of Odin, 
by attempting to destroy Christianity. Apostatizing from 

[12] 



THE RELIGION OF DENMARK 

the Catholic faith, he involved the Christians during the 
early part of his reign in the deepest calamity and distress, 
and treated them with the greatest injustice and cruelty; 
but reverses having quelled his fanaticism he became, after 
his second invasion of England, more tolerant of the new 
religion. 

His son, Cnute the Great, who ascended the throne in 
1014, had been brought up under Christian influences in 
England. Actuated by a sense of duty, as well as by the 
insistence of his consort, the English princess Emma, he 
established Christianity on a permanent basis; and, as affirms 
Saxo Grammaticus, brought Denmark more closely to the 
centre of unity, by a formal visit of state, which he made to 
Rome in 1026. The conversion of the Danish people was as 
yet, however, only partial and lacking in thoroughness; for 
paganism, popularized in the worship of Odin with its deep- 
rooted superstitious practices and depraved morals, lingered 
long in the land; hence, even in the days of Shakespeare's 
Hamlet, many traces of it survived, and continued to infect 
the minds and morals of the people. 

The question of Hamlet's religion might merit little at- 
tention, if Shakespeare had lived in our day, when liberty 
of conscience, as well as freedom of religious worship, are 
principles more or less universally accepted. But, consider- 
ing the fact that he lived in the Elizabethan era, when the 
rancorous zeal of the new religion subjected adherents of the 
ancient faith to cruel persecution; and considering, further, 
that the Poet wrote for popular audiences, which applauded 
all that favored the new State-religion, and showed hostility 
to all that was friendly to the olden Church ; it must, indeed, 
appear remarkable that this Tragedy of Hamlet, which 
Shakespeare loved most, and over which he pondered longest, 
and revised most often, should above all his works be in 
tone the most Catholic. If to prove a successful playwright, 
he was obliged to cater to the popular tastes of his anti-Catho- 

[13] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

lie audiences, and thus sustain in public an appearance of 
orthodoxy, he did so in other dramas, in which his characters 
might rave to the full in their animosity against the Church 
and the clergy. Hence, we see in one the blustering, lecherous 
rake — Falstaff, whose friendship was fatal, whose hatred 
was praise, and whose sole religion in his dying moments was 
the mumbling of curses against the Pope. In others he 
portrays the newly created nobility, who fattened on the 
plunder of monasteries and estates of the Church, and whose 
highest self-interest was to glorify the new and to condemn 
the old religion. But the man whom Shakespeare chooses to 
vilify the Church is King John, who was, says Macaulay, the 
meanest and the vilest monarch that ever shared the English 
throne. In him he exposes the frenzied rage of a tyrant who 
exhausts the vocabulary of vilification against the Pope and 
the Church in a war which was not religious, but political, a 
war against the rights and liberties of his people. 

There can be little difficulty concerning Hamlet's reli- 
gion. Though Saxo Grammaticus, who wrote in the year 
1204, assigned the legend of Amleth to a remote period, when 
the Northmen, still under the sway of paganism, had not yet 
received the light of Christianity, Shakespeare, nevertheless, 
ascribes the existence of the personages of the drama to the 
age of the first crusade, and portrays them with beliefs and 
sentiments common to the Catholic world of that day. Ham- 
let in person reflects the social life and manners prevalent in 
England at a much later period, and perhaps in the dra- 
matist's own time. Yet his hero is strongly characterized as a 
Christian prince of Denmark, firm in his belief, and unswerv- 
ing in adherence to its unchanging principles of morality. 
Hence, Gervinus, certainly an unbiased authority, could con- 
fidently affirm that "The Poet has in Hamlet expressly 
given prominence to the good Catholic Christianity of the 
acting personages. ' ' 

If it is clear from the drama that Shakespeare has made 
[14] 



THE RELIGION OF DENMARK 

Hamlet a Catholic, it seems surprising that a few theorists 
have been found, who claim to see in him the incarnation of 
Protestantism. The Poet, they say, wished to hold up to 
the world the mirror of Hamlet's soul, wherein, all, who 
will, may see reflected the inconsistencies, and doubts, and 
contradictions, and obscure wanderings of a mind around 
which Protestantism has thrown its enchanting spell. Its 
fundamental dogma which makes private judgment — so 
variable in man — the sole and ultimate criterion of all di- 
vinely revealed truths, naturally engenders doubts and by a 
slow but logical process leads to indifferentism or scepticism. 

Such a theory, while possible, seems at variance with evi- 
dence flashing from the drama itself. If the theory were true, 
it would prove Shakespeare the greatest seer of the modern 
world; for it would endow him with a great prophetic spirit, 
which peering down through future ages, foresaw the logical 
consequences of the religious innovations of his times, just 
as we see them about us to-day in their multiplied contradic- 
tory forms and isms. Beautiful and captivating as this theory 
may be, it cannot, we think, be verified. No serious reader 
of Shakespeare will admit without proof that the Poet really 
intended this Titanic tragedy to be nothing more than a mere 
burlesque or comedy on the doubts and errancies of Protest- 
antism, which, cast rudderless upon the ebbing and flowing 
seas of religious beliefs, was destined through after-centuries 
to be driven hither and thither at the mercy of the ever- 
shifting winds of time. 

The theory, very far from probable, rests upon an un- 
steady support, upon an assumption which is based on the 
views of the subjective school under the leadership of Goethe 
and Coleridge. They see in Hamlet a vacillating creature, who 
in weakness of will is ever designing, but never performing. 
But, as a superstructure is no stronger than its foundation, 
the assumption falls, because its support has been undermined, 
as we shall see, by the more modern objective school, which 

[15] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

proves that both Goethe and Coleridge were utterly mistaken 
in their views of Hamlet's character. The theory is further 
controverted by evidence intrinsic to Shakespeare's dramas. 
They reveal his utter dislike of Puritanism, ridicule the 
Parsons of the new state religion, disclose his partiality for 
the creed of his fathers, and, according to an authority 
strongly Protestant, " always mentions the old Faith with a 
certain yearning of fondness." 1 Hence, Cardinal Newman 
felt warranted to write : ' ' The most illustrious among English 
writers has so little of Protestantism about him that Catholics 
have been able, without extravagance, to claim him as their 
own." 2 This in mind, one can scarcely believe that the Poet 
intended to create in the grand character of Hamlet so noble 
a herald of the religious innovators of his day. From his 
hero's lips we hear fall not a word in approval of the "Re- 
formers," no; not even an "adulterated drop of their new 
doctrines. ' ' All to the contrary, his every thought and word 
concerning religion are in strict conformity with the ancient 
Faith of his fathers. 



1 "Shakespeare's England", Thornbury, Vol. I, p. 211. 

2 "English Oath. Literature in Its Relation to Classical Literature" 

[16] 



CHAPTER III 

Is Hamlet a Positivist 

If any theory of Hamlet's Protestantism in untenable, 
what must be said of the view of certain Positivists who seek 
to claim through him a relationship with Shakespeare ? Their 
claim appears the more surprising, if we glance at their philo- 
sophic system. Notwithstanding its apparent originality, 
which is due to modern dress and forms of thought, Positivism 
is the revival of the ancient doctrine that man is the measure 
of the universe. That all human knowledge is limited to 
bodily sense perceptions ; that material and formal causes are 
unknowable ; that final causes are illusions, and efficient causes 
simply invariable antecedents ; that our intelligible world and 
the boundless universe, as well as the mind, heart and duty 
of man, are narrowed down to the mere knowledge of visible 
things; all these are fundamental dogmas of ancient as well 
as of modern Positivism. 

As a religious system, Positivism admits neither the 
existence of the Creator, nor {Supernatural and spiritual 
agencies, nor the spirituality of the soul and its immortality 
in a future life of rewards and punishments; but, supplant- 
ing the personal God of the Christians by the " Great Being" 
called Humanity, it makes it the sole object of its veneration 
and cult. Mindful of these dogmas of Positivism, an in- 
telligent reader will at once recall their multiplied contra- 
dictions in Shakespeare's works. His belief in Sacred Scrip- 
ture, in God and Creator, and His all ruling Providence ; his 
affirmation of the spirituality and immortality of the soul, 
and the existence of angels and evil spirits; his portrayal of 
preternatural agencies especially in Macbeth and Hamlet; his 
acceptance of purgatory, hell and heaven; his teaching con- 
cerning the efficacy of prayer, and grace, and the sacraments, 

[17] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

as well as his ideas of Christian morality, as revealed in his 
good and evil characters; all are so emphatically affirmed in 
his dramas that his opposition to Positivism shines forth from 
them as brilliantly as the glaring light of day. 

Apart, then, from the fact that the dramatist affords in 
his writings innumerable proofs that he was not a Positivist, 
but a believing Christian, upon what grounds do Positivists 
claim that Hamlet, as well as Shakespeare, is one of their own ? 
A proof, thinks a certain professor, 1 is found in the famous 
soliloquy, in which Hamlet speaks of "The undiscovered 
country from whose bourn no traveler returns." Armed with 
this apparent proof, he attempts to inflict on Hamlet and 
on Shakespeare his own dogma of Positivism. The professor 
writes: "The metaphysical Hamlet sees a true ghost, but so 
far reverts to the Positivism which underlies Shakespeare's 
thinking, as to speak soon after of "the undiscovered country 
from whose bourn no traveler returns. ' ' 

The Professor's assumption is clearly based on a mis- 
conception of the term, "undiscovered! country," for an 
analysis of the soliloquy will show that Hamlet in reality ad- 
mits, contrary to Positivistic doctrine, the existence of a spirit 
world, and merely regrets that it must remain forever "un- 
discovered, ' ' that is, unseen and unexplored by man in mortal 
life. To discover means, according to standard authorities, 
"to expose to view," "to bring to light," — "to make 
known;" and specifically considered, it signifies: "to find 
and to bring to the knowledge of the world. ' ' Leif Eric and 
his roving Northmen landed on the coast of Massachusetts 
more than four hundred years before Columbus, and, never- 
theless, affirms Fiske, in his "History of the Discovery of 
America," it is an abuse of language to say that they dis- 
covered America. Though De Soto gazed on the Mississippi 
years before Marquette explored it, the latter is justly called 
the discoverer, because, while De Soto kept his knowledge to 

1 Gr. Santayana, Ph. D. — Formerly instructor in philosophy at Harvard Uni- 
' versity Cf. "American Eccl. Review", Vol. 17, pp. 348 and 484. 

[18] 






IS HAMLET A POSITIVIST? 

himself, Marquette gave to the world his maps and descrip- 
tions of the discovery and exploration. In Shakespeare 's age, 
the use of the terms "discovered" and "undiscovered" 
country were common enough in their specific sense; many 
maritime rovers, following in the wake of Columbus, roamed 
the high seas in search of new lands, and, in giving to the 
world a description of their explorations, merited the name 
of discoverers, and were universally so acknowledged. Hence, 
though as a Christian, believing in the existence of the future 
life on the authority of Divine Revelation, Hamlet could, 
even after his conversation with the ghostly visitant, justly 
call the spirit world an "undiscovered country." His 
father's ghost gave him indeed an assurance of a life here- 
after, but was forbid, beyond the specific purpose of his visit, 
to gratify his curiosity concerning the affairs of the other 
world; and, therefore, that world still remained to Hamlet 
"an undiscovered country." The disembodied spirit though 
permitted to revisit earth in the cause of justice, was not 
allowed to resume human life and, like a traveller returning 
to his native land, to disclose to fellowmen his discoveries and 
explorations of the unseen spirit world. 

" Ghost. . . . but that I am forbid 

To tell the secrets of my prison house, 

I could a tale unfold whose lightest word 

Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, 

Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, 

Thy knotted and combined locks to part 

And each particular hair to stand on end, 

Like quills upon the fretful porcupine: 

But this eternal blazon must not be 

To ears of flesh and blood." 

That the ghost was forbidden to blazon forth to mortal 
ear the secrets of the spirit world, was sufficient reason for 
Hamlet to regret that that region must forever remain to man 
in human life an "undiscovered country." The prohibition 
so strongly emphasized by the ghost is in strict accordance 

[19] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

with the the ordinations of Divine Providence regarding 
all still sojourning on earth. Truths of the supernatural 
order which are beyond man's native reach, have been made 
known to him by Divine revelation, not indeed to satisfy his 
curiosity, but for his spiritual or religious guidance here, and 
his eternal welfare hereafter. Christianity itself is a religious 
edifice built upon Divine Revelation, and, therefore, the faith 
of a Christian is necessarily a faith in God's existence and his 
revelation, which includes the fact of a sprit world invisible 
to human eye. Without this faith, says the Apostle, "it is 
impossible to please God. ' ' 

The truth that a Christian's life on earth must be a life 
of faith, and not of vision or experimental knowledge of the 
future world, is exemplified in Sacred Scripture. When 
Dives from the torments in hell prayed Father Abraham for 
relief, he was told: "Between us and you, there is fixed a 
great chaos; so that they who would pass from hence to you. 
cannot, nor from thence come hither. 2 This chaos, which 
separates the visible from the invisible, or spirit world, seems, 
by the ordinary law of God, to be a gulf which bars all pass- 
ing and repassing from one region to the other. Hence, the 
invisible world must forever remain to human life a region 
unseen and unexplored, an "undiscovered country," whose 
existence and whose nature can be known to man on earth 
only by Divine Revelation. This universal law commonly 
inviolable, flows as a consequence from the divine decree, ac- 
cording to which man's salvation depends upon his faith in 
God's Revelation; and it stood a barrier against Dives' 
earnest prayer. Experience has more than once attested the 
truth of our Savior's words that the man who will not be- 
lieve the word of God on the testimony of his accredited 
prophets, will neither believe it on the word of one risen from 
the dead. 



2 Luke, XVI 19. 

[20] 



CHAPTER IV 

Is Hamlet a Pantheist 

Since Shakespeare's excellence has led various schools, 
whether Agnostic, Positivistic or Pantheistic, to claim him as 
a disciple, several writers have affected to think that he had 
no religion whatsoever, or at best was but a Pantheist. Others 
again affirm that every one, according to his view of the in- 
tellectual and moral world, may see in him an exponent of his 
own religion; because in the mirror which he holds up to 
nature, each one sees his own face reflected. While this 
reflection is universally admitted, not so, however, is the 
nature and material of which that mirror is constructed. The 
mirror is undoubtedly pantheistic, affirms Benno Tschischwitz, 
as well as Professor Klein, both German commentators. That 
they should wish to grace their Pantheistic school with a fel- 
low-disciple, like the great dramatic poet, is, if not com- 
mendable, at least not surprising; but that they should base 
their claim on what appears to every Christian mind an un- 
substantial shadow, is indeed a matter of much wonderment. 

The claim of these writers rests on two assumptions: 
the one, that during Bruno's brief stay in London, Shake- 
speare attended his lectures ; and the other, that he borrowed 
certain philosophic principles from him, and embodied them 
in the play of Hamlet, and notably in the soliloquy, "To be 
or not to be. ' ' Against this latter assertion, Gervinus affirms it 
to be his strong belief that a poet of Shakespeare's genius 
drew from the wealth of his own intellect the richest materials 
for the delineation of his characters. But, is it really true 
that the Poet attended Bruno's lectures in London? Is it, 
moreover, true that some of the views with which he has 
enriched his Hamlet, are, as not a few commentators think, in 

[21] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

harmony with the erratic doctrines of the wandering phil- 
osopher ? 

A brief sketch of Bruno, and his mental aberrations 
will show that a kind Providence preserved Shakespeare from 
inocculation with so fatal a virus. Giordano Bruno was an 
excommunicated Italian monk. His life is the story of a rest- 
lessness of spirit, which caused him to wander the world over 
without finding an abiding home anywhere. When threat- 
ened at home with a judicial investigation concerning his 
pernicious morals and irreligious doctrines, he fled to Switzer- 
land in 1579, where, after consorting for a time with the 
Calvinists, he was excommunicated by their supreme council. 
From Switzerland he passed to France, and thence to Eng- 
land in 1583. But as " neither his dear friends nor any one 
else, except himself, has left any mention 'concerning his brief 
stay in London," we should be slow to credit the unverified 
statements of a man characterized, not only by an astound- 
ing egotism, but also by a well known lack of honor and of 
moral responsibility. Even Lewes, a very partial biographer, 
found it necessary to note that there is a considerable For- 
fanterie about the Neopolitan, and that his statements must 
be received with caution. 1 

Armed with a letter of commendation to the French am- 
bassador in London, Bruno was much befriended by him, and 
was not slow to pay court to the "Virgin Queen," who, as 
he declared, "from her cold clime near the arctic circle, shed 
a bright light upon all the terrestrial globe." As an un- 
frocked monk, he was welcomed by the " Ref ormers, " and 
soon found high favor with them, because of his scurrilous 
attacks upon the Church ; for at that time religious strife was 
rampant in London. Ambitious to obtain a footing at Ox- 
ford, Bruno addressed to the university a fanfaronade in 
the form of an epistle: 

"To, the most famous doctors and celebrated Masters 
of the University of Oxford, — Salutation from Philotheus 

i "The Month", London, Vol. Ill, "Giordano Bruno", p. 573. 

[22] 



IS HAMLET A PANTHEIST? 

Jordanus Brunus of Nola, Doctor of a more scientific 
theology, professor of a purer and less harmful learn- 
ing, known in the chief universities of Europe, a 
philosopher approved and honorably received, a stranger 
only to the uncivilized and ignoble, an awakener of sleep- 
ing minds, a tamer of presumptuous and obstinate igno- 

ranee, whom only propagators of folly 

and hypocrites detest, whom the honorable and studious 
love, and noble minds applaud, etc." (loco citato, p. 574.) 

But Bruno's wild and unacceptable theories found no 
favor at Oxford, and, after a few lectures, the university 
closed its doors upon him. In anger, he issued a lampoon 
upon the institution. Oxford was now only 

"a, widow of true science. Its professors were a con- 
stellation of dull pedants, with rings on their fingers, 
and purple gowns on their shoulders, whose ignorance, 
presumption, and rustic rudeness would have exhausted 
the patience of Job, and who knew more of beer than 
Greek; the students were boorish and dissipated youths, 
given to drunkeness, debauchery and violence." 

Bruno continued to preach in audacious eloquence in 
London, but his free-thinking errors, and his virulent at- 
tacks on Christianity brought him into disrepute, and, in 
fine, roused such violent opposition, that in 1585, after a two 
years' stay, he was obliged to leave England as hurriedly as 
he had come. 

To assert that the hostile vaporings of an apostate monk 
found favor with Shakespeare is to overtax our credulity; 
for the Poet, as is universally admitted, reveals on every 
occasion his respect and esteem for monks or friars, and his 
love and reverence for the Church. Again, if Shakespeare 
were in London at the time, it seems incredible that, as a poor 
youth struggling for a livelihood, he should have either the 
inclination or the opportunity to mingle with the Dons at 
Oxford in attendance at the lectures of a man whose prin- 
ciples were in opposition to his own. Moreover, the advocates 
of such a theory must meet the fatal anachronism which stares 

[23] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

them in the face, and gives the death-blow to their assump- 
tions. Bruno and Shakespeare, it seems, never met in Lon- 
don. During the two years of Bruno's escapades in England, 
Shakespeare is recorded as suffering persecution at Stratford 
at the hands of Sir Lucy, the Puritan, whom he later im- 
mortalized in satire. Shakespeare reached London only in 
1586, the year after Bruno had fled from England, and dur- 
ing the same year the ex-monk passed from France to Ger- 
many, to matriculate at the University of Marburg. 

If, therefore, for good reasons, Shakespeare never met 
Bruno, nor attended his lectures, is it nevertheless true that 
his Hamlet reveals some of Bruno's philosophic principles? 
What was Bruno's philosophy? 2 "Was he an Atheist? a 
Phenomenonist ? a Materialist? an Idealist? a Pantheist? 
Strictly speaking, he was none, and at the same time, he was 
all of these. That is to say, he maintained all these systems 
together, but could never determine which he favored most 
and which least. ' ' Even a judge so partial as Lewes, declares 
that his philosophy has only an historical, not an intrinsic 
value, and that its condemnation is written in the fact of its 
neglect. 3 As a precursor of the modern Pantheistic school, 
Bruno taught that the infinite soul of God not merely in- 
habited the universe, but that the universe was simply a 
manifestation of Him, and therefore, itself divine. For God 
and the world are one ; since matter and spirit, and body and 
soul, are the same divine substance under different phases. 
In the words of Professor Schairp: "Bruno's philosophy re- 
duced human nature to a heap of finely granulated iridescent 
dust, and emptied man of a soul, and the universe of a God. ' ' 

If such be Bruno's pantheistic teaching, is it true that 
Shakespeare was his disciple? Does the Poet destroy man's 
soul and his personality? Does he confound man with God. 
and attempt the impossible, by making the finite creature one 

2 "Brunomania", by L. Previti, S. J., p. 591, and "History of Philosophy", 

Turner, p. 429. 

3 "History of Philosophy", II, 101. 

[24] 



IS HAMLET A PANTHEIST? 

and the same with the infinite Creator? His dramas are all 
so luminous with arguments to the contrary that none but a 
Pantheist with mental vision jaundiced can be blind to their 
effulgence. If the pantheist dreams that "the entire phe- 
nomenal universe is nothing but the ever changing existent 
form of the one single universal substance, which is God; 
so that God is everything that is, and everything that is, is 
God, ' ' Shakespeare, on the contrary, is awake to the truthful 
reality of things, and like a true Christian believes in the 
supernatural revelation of a personal God, who is really 
and essentially distinct from His creatures. In making man 
a little less than the angels, God has endowed him with a 
finite reason and a free will subject to His moral law, which 
He vindicates by rewarding the virtuous and punishing the 
reprobate. 

If Shakespeare be a Pantheist, then every Christian is a 
Pantheist. St. Teresa saw in the varied flowers of the fields 
the beauty of their infinite cause. St. Ignatius of Loyola 
gazed on the myriad twinkling stars of heaven, and heard 
them sing in unison the wisdom, and the glory, and the power 
of their Creator. St. Francis of Assisi, at the sound of whose 
voice the fishes of the sea and the birds of the air gathered to 
hear him speak the praises of their Maker, was so imbued with 
the sense of God's omnipresence as to perceive Him existing 
in all creatures both animate and inanimate, and to hear them 
recount His perfections more eloquently than a beautiful crea- 
tion of art does the artist's skill. St. Paul charged the pagans 
of Rome with the crime of infidelity : 

"For the invisible things of Him from the creation of 
the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things 
that are made: His eternal power also and Divinity; so 
that they are inexcusable. Because, when they knew God, 
they have not glorified Him as God, nor given thanks; 
but because vain in their thoughts, their foolish heart 
was darkened: for professing themselves to be wise, they 
became fools. And they changed the glory of the incor- 

[25] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

ruptible God, into the likeness of the image of the cor- 
ruptible man, wherefore God gave them up to the desire 
of their hearts. ' ' Romans, 1-19. 

But if none of these historic characters is ever recog- 
nized as a Pantheist, neither may Shakespeare, who but re- 
peats their Christian ideas. How beautifully he expresses 
their thoughts in the oft quoted lines : 

"And this our life exempt from public haunt, 
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks. 
Sermons in stones, and good in everything." 

The royal Psalmist ages before had sung in rhapsody : ' * The 
heavens show forth the glory of God, and the firmament de- 
clareth the works of His hands. Day to day uttereth speech, 
and night to night showeth knowledge ." 4 How sublimely 
this same idea is expressed, and enlarged upon in Shake- 
speare 's beautiful lines : 

"Look how the floor of Heaven 
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold, 
There 's not the smallest orb which thou beholdest 
But in his motion like an angel sings, 
Still quiring to the young-eyed Cherubim; 
Such harmony is in immortal souls; 
But while this muddy vesture of decay 
Doth grossly close it in, we can not hear it. ' ' 

Here the Poet affirms that the music of the spheres, like 
angel voices, is truly audible in nature, but can be heard by 
those only who, unenslaved by their gross, corruptible body, 
rise with the aspiration of their nobler and spiritual self. 

Yes, truly, Shakespeare holds the mirror up to nature, 
and this created nature in its sum of innumerable entities, or 
creatures, is like an immense mirror which, composed of an 
untold number of minute parts, reflects, each in itself, some 
perfection of the Sun of Glory, who in His infinitude of 
power, is the Great First Cause. Hence, every Christian 

* Ps. 18. 

[26] 



IS HAMLET A PANTHEIST? 

imbued with divine faith sees, as Shakespeare did, the per- 
fections of God reflected everywhere. The babbling brooklet, 
the wavelet murmuring on the sandy shore, and the sonorous 
cataract, repeat His mysterious name; enchanting scenes, 
which charm the eye and entrance the fancy, and flowers in 
wondrous varied species, arrayed in glory more than Solo- 
mon's, impress a sense of His inconceivable beauty; earth 
teeming with multiplied forms of life, and, amid warring ele- 
ments, ever changing yet ever the same, and working by 
manifold laws unto one harmonious whole, proclaims His 
incomprehensible wisdom; the shrieking gale, the terror- 
striking storm, the frenzied roar of untamed ocean, crashing 
thunders, quaking earth and smoking mountains, all give 
voice to His supreme and irresistible power ; in fine, the awe- 
inspiring structure, not made by human hands, whose floors 
are velvet green, whose walls are snow-capped mountains; 
whose dome is the ever changing firmament of heaven, 
' ' fretted with golden fire, ' ' is the grand palace made for man, 
whereof he is appointed king, and through its naves and aisles 
he hears re-echoing in tones as of an organ grand, a chorus 
of voices which chant the love, grandeur and sublime intel- 
ligence of its Architect. Everywhere the presence and ac- 
tivity of creatures and their necessary correlation with their 
Cause, uplift man's mind from self to the great Creator of 

them all. 

Every Christian holds with the " Angelic Doctor" 5 that 
the Lord of nature is present in His universe in a threefold 
manner: He is present in all things by His power, because 
everything is subject to His sway; He is present in every- 
thing by His essence, because, creating and conserving all 
things, He co-operates in their activity ; He is in all things by 
His presence, because He knows and sees all things. This 
Christian doctrine is as far from Pantheism as the finite crea- 
ture is from the infinite Creator. The Pantheist, confusing 
matter with spirit, soul with body, and God with the world, 

B St. Thorn. "Summa Theologia", Pars. 1, Quest. VIII, art. 3. 

[27] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

makes all one and the same divine substance ; but the Christ- 
ian, rejecting this confusion of thought, maintains a distinc- 
tion real and essential between the Creator and His creatures. 
He believes in a higher and more sublime Pan-theism in as 
far as all things, though not one and the same with God, yet 
proclaim as effects the power and magnificence of their Maker. 
By His power, essence, and knowledge, He is present in all 
His works; for all things are of Him and by Him, and in 
Him 6 and in Him we move, and live, and have our being. T 
Hence every entity of our universe proclaims His existence, 
and mirrors forth His perfections, each in its own degree. 
In this universe He lives and moves as a King in His palace, 
and, as the Monarch of His realm, directs and governs all 
things. These truths, and not the crude material Pantheism 
of Giordano Bruno, were accepted by Shakespeare as is 
clearly shown by the Christian principles which illumine his 
works. His views are voiced by a latter poet : 

"The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the 

plains, 
Are not these, Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns? 
Speak to Him, thou, for He hears and Spirit with spirit 

can meet 
Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and 

feet." 8 

In the sacred edifice at Stratford, rest Shakespeare's 
honored remains. There, though he be silent in death, the 
epitaph on his tomb still eloquently speaks the Christian be- 
lief in which he was reared, and in which he died 9 in the 
assured hope of a glorious immortality: 

"Good friend, for Jesus' sake forebear 
To dig the dust enclosed here; 
Blest be the man that spares these stones, 
And curst be he that moves my bones." 

6 Rom. 11, 16. 7 Acts 17, 28. 8 Tennyson in the "Holy Grail". 

9 According to an unbroken tradition recorded by an Anglican clergyman, the 

Rev. W. Fulman, whose manuscript is preserved at Corpus Christs College, 

Oxford. 

[28] 



IS HAMLET A PANTHEIST? 

This epitaph fulminates in the name of the Christ a 
dreadful curse against profaners, and as for centuries past, 
it has preserved his tomb intact, so for centuries to come, 
it will guard his bones against the desecrating hand of icono- 
clast and vandal. That Christian epitaph is the poet's voice 
from the dead, which with emphasis decries any attempt of 
Agnostic, or Positivist, or Pantheist, to attaint his memory 
with anti-Christian follies and vagaries. 



I 29 J 



CHAPTER V 

Hamlet a Student of Philosophy 
in Germany 

Certain commentators assume that Hamlet studied phil- 
osophy at the Protestant University of Wittenberg. The 
assumption subjectively considered does not seem strange, 
since these annotators, as adherents of one or other of the 
religions which originated at the period of the "Reforma- 
tion," naturally desire the popular hero to attend a Protest- 
ant institution; but, if viewed objectively, it appears indeed 
surprising, because it has no support in the text. It is 
beyond dispute that Shakespeare places Hamlet, as well as 
the whole action of the tragedy in the early part of the 
eleventh century, about the year 1012, when the king of Den- 
mark was suzerain of England; and it is no less clear that 
he meant the Prince to attend some school of philosophy of 
his day, and not one that began its existence only five hundred 
years later. 

There were many famous seats of learning in Germany 
in Hamlet 's time, but not one university. That of Wittenberg 
was founded in 1502 by Frederic the Wise, a Catholic, and 
later fell under Protestant control. Though religious bias 
may prompt some annotators to charge the Poet with an 
anachronism of five centuries, we cannot suppose that a 
chasm so vast could have escaped his observant eye, especially 
as the error would confront him in almost every scene of the 
drama. He may, indeed, justly plead not guilty ; for he sends 
his hero, not to a university at all, but, as expressly stated 
in the text, "to school at Wittenberg." 

That many philosophic schools flourished in Germany in 
the days of Hamlet is an historic fact so well established as 

[30] 



HAMLET A STUDENT IN GERMANY 

to need no elucidation, save for the common misapprehension 
concerning education in the Middle Ages. Many histories in 
our common schools still pander to the unhistoric belief that 
the pre-reformation period was dark beyond description, 
and that Luther's "transcendent genius' ' awoke the world 
from its lethargic ignorance to a new life of eagerness for 
learning. To recognize the emptiness of such a view, it is 
only necessary to recall that the Renaissance with its great 
revival of classic literature, was in full swing more than one 
hundred years before the birth of Luther; and that at the 
time of his apostacy, as vouched for by non-Catholic authori- 
ties, there were 76 Catholic universities scattered throughout 
Europe : 20 in France, 15 in Germany, 15 in Italy, 7 in Spain, 
3 in Scotland, 2 in Austria, Switzerland and England re- 
spectively. The false view of the state of education in the 
eleventh century has gained outside the Catholic world an 
almost universal credence; because, since the time of the 
"Reformation," English literature has been mainly the 
product of anti-Catholic writers. 

Protestantism has for the last three hundred years been 
singing in chorus the one song, burdened with the bold and 
reckless assertion, that modern civilization is the work of 
the ' ' Reformation. ' ' During the same period, historians have, 
in their hostility to the Church, catered more to popular 
favor than to historic truth. Comte De Maistre, a French his- 
torian and philosopher, affirms that history for the last three 
hundred years has been a conspiracy against truth. His as- 
sertion has been reaffirmed by the Cambridge Modern His- 
tory, in its first volume on the Renaissance, which further as- 
serts that, if we are to get at the truth, we must go behind 
all the classic historians, and look up contemporary documents, 
and evidence, and authorities once more for ourselves. Only 
in recent times has this conspiracy against truth been dis- 
covered and decried by honest non-Catholic writers. With 
the disintegration of Protestantism under the persistent on- 
slaught of Rationalism, men of every shade of opinion are 

[31] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

being emancipated from the slavery of religious bias, and, 
as a consequence, they are beginning to pay homage to truth 
with the result that a perceptible change has been wrought 
in the critical character of modern historical research. 1 

In exposition of the state of education in the age of Ham- 
let, a recent non-Catholic author writes : 

"From the beginning of the ninth century, all the more 
famous monasteries had two distinct schools — one for the 
oblati, the other for outsiders. One of the complex causes 
of the astonishing new birth of Europe was the conversion 
of the Scandinavian pirates into Christians and civilized 
Normans. In Germany under the enlightened rule of 
the Ottos, the symptoms of a better order of things were 
already to be traced before the middle of the tenth cen- 
tury. Though in a sense the authority of Aristotle was 
supreme throughout this, as well as the latter medieval 
period in the formation of scholastic philosophy, the in- 
fluence of Plato upon European thought counted for at 
least as much as that of the Stagirite." H. Rashdall, The 
Universities of the Middle Ages. Vol. 1 C. 2 et passim. 

Arthur Leach makes the following remarkable assertion : 

"There is not the smallest doubt that the provision 
for secondary schools was far greater in proportion to 
population during the Middle Ages than it has ever been 
since. Every Collegiate Church kept a secondary school, 
and every Cathedral Church maintained in early days a 
small university." School Supply in the Middle Ages. 

No less an authority than Huxley writes concerning the 
culture of these schools : 

"I doubt if the curriculum of any modern university 
shows so clear and generous a comprehension of what is 
meant by culture, as this old Trivium and Quadrivium 
did." Universities actual and ideal: Inaugural Address 
as Rector of Aberdeen University. 

1 This emancipation was already enjoyed to some extent before the close of the 
last century by such famous authors as Hallam, Maitland, Digby, and Drane 
in England ; Guizot and Archey in France ; Heeren, Voigt, and Specht in 
Germany; Betinelli, Andres, and Battini in Italy. 

[32] 



HAMLET A STUDENT IN GERMANY 

If Hamlet studied philosophy in Germany, it was at 
one of these renowned schools. Their wondrous history may 
be found in detail in a German work of original research. 2 
The great cathedral school at Magdeburg, which had been 
founded in the year 937 by Otto the Great, attained equal 
rank with that of Hildesheim. Ludolph Kroppinstedt, who 
had studied twenty years at Paris, where he was a schoolmate 
of the famous St. Thomas of Canterbury, was called by 
archbishop Weigman to take charge of the school. Within 
its walls, philosophy was taught by the famous master, Ger- 
bert, and by Oterich, a rival professor of equal fame. It 
attracted students from all parts of Germany, and thither 
the princes of the empire, as well as the Teutonic knights of 
Prussia, sent their sons. A rival school was founded in 
993 at Hildesheim by the emperor Otto III, who was himself 
a scholar and a pupil of the renowned Gerbert. It soon ac- 
quired eminence, and became illustrious as the principal in- 
stitution of higher learning in North Germany. 

Worthy of note is the fact that in the days of Hamlet, 
Thietmar, a celebrated priestly scholar and a countryman 
of the Prince of Denmark was at the head of the famous im- 
perial school at Hildesheim. At one or other of these famous 
institutions of Northern Germany, which were frequented by 
the sons of kings and princes, Shakespeare, no doubt intended 
Hamlet to study philosophy. He was, however, unacquainted 
with the history of learning in Germany in the eleventh cen- 
tury; such a history had not yet been written. But he was 
aware that at home the university of Oxford, like other uni- 
versities of Europe, had been the natural outgrowth of pre- 
existing famous schools, and by analogy he would reasonably 
infer that the same was the case at Wittenberg. It was the 
only place of which he knew, and the name was moreover 
familiar to his audience, and that alone was a sufficient reason 
to send his hero to school at Wittenberg. 

2 "Geschichte des Unterrichtswesens in Deutschland" by Dr. Specht. 

[33] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

If some, ignoring these very pertinent historic facts, wish, 
nevertheless, to think that the Poet, enamoured of the 
"innovations of the Reformers," desired to have the Prince 
imbued with their doctrines at the Protestant university at 
Wittenberg, they must not only charge him with an astound- 
ing anachronism of five centuries, but also ignore the fact 
that he makes Hamlet a Catholic; that in his dramas he re- 
veals more than once a, dislike for the "Reformers" and their 
innovations; and more wondrous still, that he fails to cause 
the Dane to utter even a single word in favor of the doctrines 
of the new religion, which they suppose him to have imbibed 
at Wittenberg. On the contrary, Hamlet's thoughts and 
sentiments, as shall be seen, are in striking harmony with the 
religious principles, and morals, and philosophy as prevalent 
in the imperial schools of Northern Germany of the eleventh 
century. 



I 34 j 



CHAPTER VI 

The Age of Hamlet 

The topic of Hamlet's years has given rise to almost as 
much discussion as the question of the duration of the drama. 
The Poet deals with the one and the other in the same artful 
manner. From the opening of the play he seems to convey, 
in scene after scene, the impression that the Prince, still in the 
heyday of his youth, is probably not more than twenty or 
twenty-three years of age. As this skillful legerdemain gives 
rise to the notion of Hamlet's youthfulness, it is well to con- 
sider it before touching upon his actual age. 

Ignoring the brief duration of the dramatic action, some 
critics are led to enlarge unduly on Hamlet's supposed weak- 
ness of will, or vacillation. They suppose the action of the 
tragedy to run on for many months or even a year, and, in 
consequence, exaggerate the Prince 's apparent procrastination. 
This delusion, says Furness, results from the Poet's skillful 
method of dealing with the dramatic element of time, a 
method whereby he conveys, in an artful manner, two opposite 
ideas : the one of swiftness, and the other of slowness. By one 
series of illusions, we imagine that the action is driving along 
in storm, while by the other, we are insensibly beguiled into 
believing that it extends over many months. Our mind, 
engrossed by the action of the drama, fails to measure the 
duration, and accepts without questioning each successive 
impression as the Poet intended. In illustration, Polonius, 
who was surely cognizant of the latest court news, expresses 
as much surprise as Ophelia herself at Hamlet's strange be- 
havior, and yet, from this very interview with his daughter, 
he goes directly to the king, and speaks of Hamlet's lunacy 
as a fact well known and of long duration. This and many 
other instances, which may be multiplied by any careful 

[35] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

reader, are not inconsistencies or oversights on the part of the 
Poet. They belong to two series of time, the one suggestive 
and illusory, and the other visible and directly indicated. 
These two elements have been called by Halpin, the pro- 
tractive and the accelerating series, and by Sir Christopher 
North, the two clocks of Shakespeare. Counting off the time 
by one of these clocks, some have estimated the duration of 
the dramatic action at seven or eight days, while others as- 
sign at least ten days. 1 

It may be reasonably asserted that while the action of 
the drama may be thus possibly compressed into a period of 
seven days, nevertheless, from certain data given, one may 
calculate with some precision that the actual time of the en- 
tire drama does not exceed three months, a period of time 
affording, indeed, scanty room for procrastination in the 
project of killing a king, under the circumstances in which 
Hamlet was placed. At the opening of the play, two im- 
portant events are premised as accomplished; the murder of 
Hamlet's father and the marriage of his mother. That the 
former occurred in November and the latter in December, may 
be inferred from the time of the ghostly apparition ; and this 
time is indicated by Marcellus in the words: 

"Some say that ever, 'gainst that season comes 
Wherein our Savior's birth is celebrated, 
The bird of dawning singeth all night long; 
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad; 
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, 
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, 
So hallowed and so gracious is the time." 

1 If Daniel's calculation of time be accepted, the action may, in accordance, be 
divided into seven respective days, as follows : 

First day, - - - Act I, scene I— III. 

Second day, - - - Act I, scene IV— V. 
Here, is supposed an interruption of less than two months. 

Third day, - - - Act II. 

Fourth day, - - - Act III, scene I— IV ; Act IV, scene I-III. 

Fifth day, - - - Act III, scene IV. 
At this point, a week or more, is thought to intervene. 

Sixth day, - - - Act IV, scene V-VII. 

Seventh day, - - - Act V. 

[36] 



THE AGE OF HAMLET 

It was not, therefore, till after Christmas-tide that Hamlet 
heard the secret of the grave from his father's ghost. Before 
this ghostly visit, and prior to the Christmas season, oc- 
curred the queen's marriage, and of its haste the prince com- 
plains to Horatio: 

"Ham. But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg? 
Hor. My lord, I came to see your father's funeral. 
Ham. I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student; 

I think it was to see my mother's wedding. 
Hor. Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon. 
Ham. Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked-meats 

Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables." 

Again, in the soliloquy of the same scene, in which Ham- 
let expresses his strong feelings of disgust at his mother's 
shameful haste in marrying within a month of his father's 
death, we learn that Claudius had murdered his brother in 
the previous month of November : 

"Ham. . . . And yet, within a month, — 

Let me not think on't, — Frailty, thy name is woman! — 

A little month, or ere those shoes were old 

With which she followed my poor father's body, 

Like Niobe, all tears; why, she, even she — 

God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason, 

Would have mourned longer — married with my uncle." 

In the interim, Hamlet's mind was clouded by suspicion, 
and only after the Christmas season were his fears confirmed 
by the revelations of his father's ghost. This season must be 
measured according to the custom which in Hamlet 's day was 
common to Denmark, as well as to all Christendom. Christ- 
mastide was then devoted to religious and social functions 
which, beginning on the eve of Christmas, continued till the 
festival of Epiphany and its octave. Epiphany, which sig- 
nifies the manifestation of the Lord, is a solemn festival, 
celebrated on January the sixth with great religious pomp 
and ceremony; it is considered the real Christmas of gentile 
peoples, who as distinct from the Jews, were, in the person 

[37] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

of the Magi, called by the miraculous star to the knowledge 
of the "New-born King." 

If, therefore, the ghost of Hamlet's father could not, ac- 
cording to the text, bring his message from the grave, till 
after the Christmas holidays ; and, if Christmastide, according 
to Catholic liturgy, always closes on the octave of the Epi- 
phany, which is January the thirteenth, we have the near 
date of the ghost's first appearance in the opening of the 
drama, when in midwinter the lonely sentinels complain of 
the bitter cold and the shrewdly biting air. It was the month 
of March following, when Hamlet, in the Third Act, slew 
Polonius, as is indicated by the words of Ophelia: "I would 
give you some violets, but they withered all when my father 
died. ' ' Now, if violets bloom in England in March, and wilt 
in the early part of April, we have again indicated, not only 
the time of Polonius 's death, but also the time of the closing 
of the drama. Throughout the Fourth and Fifth Acts, which 
follow closely on Polonius 's death, Hamlet was no longer a 
free agent, but a prisoner of the King; Claudius knew that 
his own death was intended by the stroke that killed Polonius, 
and in consequence he kept an anxious and watchful eye upon 
the Prince, and appointed trusted guards to attend him. The 
time of the three preceding Acts, beginning towards the 
middle of January, and continuing till the close of March, 
runs through a space of little more than two months, and 
these two months are the sole measure of the delay which is 
charged to Hamlet's vacillating character. 

What did Hamlet do during this time of less than three 
months? Was he inactive, a dreamer, or a procrastinator, 
ever immersed in doubt, when duty called to action? None 
of these was he, even though his Herculean and seemingly 
impossible task would have staggered the courage and blighted 
the resolve of many a brave man. To test the verity and 
veracity of his preternatural visitor; to prepare a play, and 
instruct the players in an effort to force from the King an 

[38] 



THE AGE OF HAMLET 

admission of his guilt ; to save his mother 's honor, and liberate 
her soul from an incestuous wedlock; to obtain such evi- 
dent proof of the guilt of Claudius, as to keep his soul un- 
tainted by the crime of regicide; and to preserve his own 
good name untarnished, and justify his bloody deed in the 
eyes of all Denmark: all these were included in his purpose; 
and surely, considering his insuperable difficulties, two 
months were not too long a time to spend in their accomplish- 
ment. They who discredit the Prince's character, by dubbing 
him a dreamer, a refiner of morals, a vacillator whose over- 
thinking paralyzed his power of action, and all, because he 
would not murder the king at sight on the unsubstantial word 
of an immaterial spectre, are refuted by the fact of the in- 
superable subjective and objective difficulties which con- 
fronted him, and in the face of which, "it would have been 
vice to act, whereas it was virtue to delay." 

From Shakespeare's skillful legerdemain, we turn to 
consider the more important and substantial view, which, on 
the dramatist's own express testimony, supposes the Prince 
to have reached the more mature age of thirty years. There 
should be, it seems, little room for doubt ; in the first scene of 
the last Act, Shakespeare explicitly affirms in the person of 
the grave-digger, that Hamlet's age is thirty years. If the 
Prince was born on the same day on which his father over- 
came Fortinbras ; and, if on that same day, the grave-digger 
entered upon his office, and continued therein for thirty years, 
we have indisputable evidence of Hamlet's true age: 

Ham. How long hast thou been a grave-digger? 

First Clown. I came to't that day that our last king 
Hamlet overcame Fortinbras. 

Ham. How long is that since? 

F. Clown. Cannot you tell that ? Every fool can tell that : 
it was the very day that young Hamlet was born; he 
that is mad and sent into England. Why here in 
Denmark, I have been sexton here, man and boy, 
thirty years. 

[39] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

Besides this evidence, there are other proofs that the age of 
thirty, far from being unsuitable to Hamlet, is rather in con- 
formity with the action of the play. Hamlet himself assigns 
a married life of thirty years to the Player-king and queen ; 
and later, when charging his mother with incestuous mar- 
riage, addresses her as a matron of middle age : 

' * You cannot call it love ; for at your age 
The heyday in the blood is tame, it's humble, 
And waits upon the judgment.' ' 

Furthermore, throughout the play, Hamlet is seen revealed, 
a man fully matured in mind, firmly formed in character, 
and with an habitual tendency to philosophize on every phase 
of life ; qualities, certainly not found in a fledgling youth. 

If it be objected that Laertes speaks of Hamlet's love for 
Ophelia, as "a violet in the youth of primy nature"; and 
again, that Polonius calls him * ' young Hamlet, ' ' the difficulty 
is rather apparent than real ; it depends for solution upon the 
Poet's idea of youthfulness, and his idea is seen in various 
dramas to be very comprehensive. He crowns his favorite 
prince Hal. as Henry V. at the age of twenty-six, and, never- 
theless, pictures him "in the very May morn of his youth." 
Moreover, when in Much Ado about Nothing, he says in the 
person of Borachio: "How giddily he turns about all the 
hot bloods, between fourteen and five and thirty," he defines 
his idea of youthfulness, by limiting its extremes to fourteen 
and thirty-five years. Hamlet's age, therefore, falling within 
these extremes, the Poet could correctly picture him as a 
man still in the heyday of his years. 

It is again objected that young noblemen in the Eliza- 
bethan era usually left the university under the age of twenty ; 
hence Hamlet must have been in his teens on leaving Witten- 
berg. But the parity underlying this objection seems un- 
tenable. Ignoring the difference of time, it supposes the Den- 
mark of the eleventh century, in which Shakespeare has cast 

[40] 



THE AGE OF HAMLET 

the whole drama, to have attained the same degree of civiliza- 
tion, and to have employed that same system of education as 
flourished in England in the Elizabethan era. l ' Blackstone 's 
criticism," says Tschischwitz, "is founded on a very erro- 
neous idea of German universities and their arrangements." 
Records show that students attending institutions of higher 
learning, in Hamlet's day, and even long after, were with 
very rare exceptions, all beyond the age of twenty-one years. 
What, therefore, may be true of conditions of education in 
the England of Shakespeare's day, is wholly without warrant 
for Denmark of the eleventh century. Of those days, a chroni- 
cler writes : l ' For fashion sake, some Danes will put their 
children to school, but they send them not till they are 
fourteen years of age." It is an historic fact that at that 
period Denmark being far behind its southern neighbors in 
civilization, had but few schools, and none for higher educa- 
tion; hence, as already shown, the nobility of Hamlet's time 
were accustomed to send their sons to the famous schools of 
Germany to acquire a higher education than a rude civiliza 
tion could offer them at home. It is reasonable, however, to 
suppose that considering the hardships and hazards of travel 
in those days these scions of nobility were not allowed to 
wander in foreign lands in quest of education, until they had 
attained the mature age of discretion, self-reliance, and de- 
fense. 

Certain critics who do not weigh these considerations, 
seem inclined to compromise the question. They suppose that 
Shakespeare began in the earlier scenes to portray the Prince 
in the "very heyday of primy nature," but as the fearful ex- 
perience which he undergoes in the progress of the drama, so 
enlivens and stimulates his faculties, as to ripen his char- 
acter and prematurely develop his intellectual powers, the 
Poet felt it necessary to smooth away any visible discrepancy 

[41] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

which might appear between a superbly cultured mind and 
immaturity of years; and, therefore, near the close of the 
drama, he adroitly reveals by the mouth of the grave-digger 
that the Prince has attained the full maturity of thirty years. 



[ 42] 



CHAPTER VII 

Hamlet's Right to the Crown 

Prince Hamlet was sole heir to the crown of Denmark, 
and in the natural order of events, would, at the death of 
his father, have ascended the throne. In this he was thwarted 
by the ambition of his uncle. Having acquired the crown 
through crime and intrigue, Claudius was an interloper, and 
may be justly considered a usurper. Against this reasonable 
view several critics take exception. Professor Werder affirms : 

"The critics are pleased to assume that Hamlet was the 
legitimate heir to the throne, his right to which has been 
wrested from him by a usurper. But where does it stand 
so written? It is a pure fiction. Hamlet himself never 
breathes a syllable of complaint. ,, 

This latter assertion is refuted by evidence intrinsic to the 
play itself; and the former is negatived by showing that 
Hamlet's right to the crown was real and not fictitious. It is 
evident from the text that the Prince, contrary to the asser- 
tion of Professor Werder, expected to succeed his father on 
the throne. To his trusted friend, Horatio, Hamlet reveals 
his disappointed hopes: 

"He that hath killed my king, and stained my mother 
Popped in between the election and my hopes." 

Again, in the scene where Hamlet strives to arouse his mother 
to a sense of shame at her incestuous union, he calls the 
usurper a "cutpurse," or thief; and so he was, because, dur- 
ing the interregnum he had stolen away the crown : 

"A cutpurse of the empire and the rule, 
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole, 
And put it in his pocket.' ' 

[43] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

His disappointed hopes are clearly revealed in Shakespeare's 
first acting copy of the play : 

"What would he do had he my loss? 

His father murdered, a crown bereft him, 

He would turn all his tears to drops of blood, ' ' etc. 

In agreement with Professor Werder is Hudson, who 
maintains his position by a specious argument: 

"Whatejver there is of hereditary right, belongs to the 
queen. She was the only child of the former king; and 
Hamlet's father was brought within the circle of eligi- 
bility by his marriage with her. Of course when her first 
husband died, and she married a second, the second be- 
came eligible just as the first had done. So that Claudius, 
the present king, holds the crown by the same legal title 
and tenure as Hamlet's father had held it." 

The argumentation offers indeed at first sight an ap- 
parently satisfactory proof, but a careful examination dis- 
closes the hypothesis to be without foundation. Hamlet, the 
only child of the reigning house, was the recognized heir ap- 
parent, and in an absolute monarchy like the Denmark of 
his day, became ipsa facto king on the death of his father. 
But ambition for the crown had, even before the elder Ham- 
let's death, impelled Claudius to resort to a deep-laid plot 
in which after the seduction of the Queen and the murder 
of her husband, he would marry her, and claim the throne 
as royal consort. He was favored by every circumstance; 
he had already gained the Queen with her powerful influence, 
and in Hamlet's continued absence and ignorance of his pur- 
pose, he found it easy to win over the chief men of the nation 
by intrigue and promises. The plot proved successful. 
When Hamlet returned for his father's funeral, he was 
amazed to find his uncle crowned as royal consort by reason 
of his marriage with the Queen. But was the plea of Claudius 
valid? Was his espousal of the Queen lawful, or was it 

[44] 



HAMLET'S RIGHT TO THE CROWN 

only putative and criminal? If unlawful, he was then the 
de facto, and Hamlet the de jure King. 

The question therefore turns upon the validity or nullity 
of the marriage. The point is important ; it affects the whole 
action of the drama, the relationship of the principal char- 
acters, and gives force to the term, "adulterous" and "in- 
cestuous, ' ' with which Hamlet reproaches his mother, as well 
as to the shame which he feels at her disgrace. Though the 
Prince's view is for Catholic readers most decisive, it seems 
not so clear to others whose judgment is influenced by loose 
notions concerning matrimony, notions which, first intro- 
duced into Christendom with the birth of the ' ' Reformation, ' ' 
have in the course of time become more and more lax. 

The legality of the marriage, it is clear, must be judged 
according to the laws which prevailed in the eleventh as 
well as in the sixteenth century, and not by the modern 
notions of the twentieth. In the time of Shakespeare's Ham- 
let, all Europe was Catholic, or Jewish, or infidel, and the 
Catholic code of morals was supreme in public and private 
life. Then a marriage was valid only when contracted ac- 
cording to the canons which governed the social and re- 
ligious life of the Denmark of those times; hence, Hamlet, 
Claudius, Gertrude, and the Ghost, all considered the mar- 
riage in question to be incestuous as the drama shows, and 
the audiences of Shakespeare were of the same belief. Matri- 
mony, it is true, was reduced to a mere contract by the ' ' Re- 
formers" of the sixteenth century, but in the eleventh it 
was, as it still is in the Catholic world, a contract which the 
"New Lawgiver" raised to the dignity and sanctity of a 
sacrament, and as such it is subject to the spiritual authority 
of His Church. In consequence, she has always regulated 
the administration of this sacrament, and safeguarded it by 
laws against desecration. These laws are designed to prevent 
crime, to protect married people in their rights, to guard 

[45] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

the sanctity of the sacrament, to maintain public and private 
morality, and so promote the common good. 

Of these laws, known as canonical impediments, some are 
called diriment, because by their annulling force they make 
null and void any marriage which the parties concerned may 
attempt. Their fundamental idea is contained in the Leviti- 
can law, and in ancient canonical texts. Some arise from 
the Divine law, and others, while suggested by the natural 
and Divine law, are ecclesiastical enactments. Three of these 
impediments directly affected Claudius, and in fact any one 
of them sufficed to invalidate his attempted marriage with 
the Queen. The first was the law that prohibited one from 
marrying his deceased brother's wife without a dispensa- 
tion. 1 It was a law which was rarely dispensed from by 
the spiritual court, and only for the gravest reasons ; but am- 
bition for the crown was not a sufficient cause to invalidate 
the law in the case of Claudius; since the crown prince was 
capable of ascending the throne, and besides there remained 
other impediments to the marriage. 

If then it is evident from the drama that Claudius ob- 
tained no dispensation to legalize his marriage, did he, like 
the English Bluebeard, defy the moral law and fall under 
the ban of the spiritual authority recognized in the realm? 
Such a supposition is far from probable. The solution of 
the difficulty is rather found in the situation of Claudius and 
in his character. On the one hand, the Church which alone 
could act in the matter had in Denmark no representative 
with sufficient power to derogate from the law. It was still 
a missionary country under the jurisdiction of the metro- 

1 The diriment impediment of marriage with a deceased brother's wife was in 
force through the whole Church from the earliest times. It is expressly 
mentioned in several councils of the 6th and 7th centuries, e. g. the 1st 
Council of Orleans (511); Auvergne (535); 3rd C. of Orleans (538); 3rd 
0. of Paris (557); 5th C. of Paris (614). The law was retained by the 
State Church of England until recently, when it was abolished by an act 
of Parliament. At the time several Anglican bishops protested against the 
innovation; but their objections were inconsistent and futile, since their 
official position as well as their religion were the creations of the same 
supreme power of Parliament. 

[46] 



HAMLET'S RIGHT TO THE CROWN 

politan of Hamburg, and therefore any action would by 
reason of distance, as well as of legal forms, necessarily in- 
volve delay. Claudius, on the other hand, knew that the suc- 
cess of his plot depended upon his hasty marriage. He could 
not in prudence await the lengthy time required for a dis- 
pensation. In fact he could brook no delay ; for Hamlet was 
hastening homeward, and would, no doubt, attempt to frus- 
trate his design. It was, therefore, urgent that the marriage, 
as well as the coronation ceremony be accomplished before 
the Prince had set foot in Denmark. If the members of the 
council had scruples concerning the impediment, an evil char- 
acter like Claudius would consider them as nothing worth. 
He had committed horrid crimes with the view of sat- 
ing his ambition. Was it likely now, when the crown was 
within his reach, that he would balk at a lesser offence ? His 
characteristic cunning and duplicity impelled him to resort 
to a convenient equivocation. The claim that he had, or was 
obtaining, the necessary dispensation for a legal marriage 
would not only satisfy scrupulous officials but also quell popu- 
lar opposition. His action is paralleled by that of the Eng- 
lish Uxorcide in 1533. Five years had rolled away since 
Henry first solicited a divorce, three, since he began to co- 
habit with Anne Boleyn. But when he discovered his mis- 
tress to be in a condition to promise him an heir, he decided 
upon a secret marriage. When Dr. Lee, the royal chaplain, 
made some opposition, Henry calmed his priestly scruples 
with the assurance that Clement VII. had granted him a 
divorce from Catherine, and that the papal document was 
safely deposited in his closet. 2 

It is clearly shown in the course of the drama that 
Claudius did not legalize his marriage. He knew that any 
attempt would be futile; for though the first impediment, 
that of marrying his deceased brother's wife, were removed, 
his marriage with the Queen was still barred by a second and 

2 "Lingard's History of England", Vol. V, p. 3. Edinburgh Edition, 1902. 

[47] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

third law which were of even greater moment. The second 
concerned the criminal seduction of a consort on the promise 
of marriage after the death of the husband. 3 It prohibited 
and nullified the marriage of the adulterer even after the 
death of the innocent party. This second impediment was a 
secret of Claudius and Gertrude, who closely guarded it, 
unaware of its disclosure to Hamlet by his father 's ghost : 

"Ay, that incestuous, that adulterous beast, 
With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts, — 
wicked wit and gifts, that have the power 
So to seduce! — won to his shameful lust 
The will of my most virtuous Queen." 

The third impediment was a law which prohibited and 
nullified the marriage of the man who murdered the husband 
of his accomplice in adultery in order to marry her. This im- 
pediment of crime was unknown to the Queen, and remained 
a secret to Claudius alone until revealed to the Prince by hi 
ghostly visitant: 

' ' 'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, 
A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark 
Is by a forged process of my death 
Rankly abused; but know, thou noble youth, 
The serpent that did sting thy father's life 
Now wears his crown." 

A criminal like Claudius, long debauched in conscience, 
gave little heed to these impediments which hopelessly barred 
his legal union with the Queen. As long as his crimes were 
securely locked in the secret of his own heart, his marriage 
would appear real to the citizens of Denmark, and, in con- 
sequence, seem no debarment from the throne. 

Since Hamlet's right to the crown depends upon the 

8 The 2nd impediment dates back to the earlier Christian centuries. It is found 
in the preserved records of the Council of Triburien (895), in several col- 
lections of Canon Law, such as those of Regino, Burchard, Ivo, and the 
famous Sum or Abridgment of Canon Law made by Gratian in 1140. The 
work consists not only of the decrees of councils and popes down to 
Innocent II, but also of passages from the Scripture, from the Fathers, 
and even from the Roman Law. 

[48] 



^AMLET'S RIGHT TO THE CROWN 

validity of his mother's marriage with Claudius, it appears 
strange that of the many commentators only one has touched 
upon the question. Professor Trench admits that the mar- 
riage was invalid, but his conclusion, though true, is based 
on premises which every Catholic knows to be erroneous. 
"The case of Gertrude," he says, "is precisely parallel with 
that of Catherine of Aragon." 4 Their cases, however, far 
from being parallel, exhibit a great disparity. Both should 
be judged according to the ecclesiastical canons which pre- 
vailed at the time, and which governed the sacramental mar- 
riage contract. Gertrude obtained no dispensation from the 
three impediments which nullified her marriage, while Cath- 
erine was canonically freed from the one barrier to her union 
with Henry. 

But, continues the Professor: "Such a union (with a 
deceased husband's brother) was illicit to the English people." 
Yes, in the case of Gertrude, but not in that of Catherine. 
The marriage of the former was from the first considered 
invalid and criminal; that of the latter, sanctioned by the 
religion of Christendom, was valid in the eyes of the Eng- 
lish nation and of Henry himself, until after eighteen years 
of wedded life, he unfortunately fell under the fascination 
of a beautiful and vivacious maid of honor in the Queen's 
household. When his overtures to Anne Boleyn were spurned 
save on the promise of marriage, he began under the in- 
fluence of his criminal passion to feel scruples concerning 
the validity of his union with Catherine. But these pretended 
scruples deceived no one ; and their hollowness was a common 
subject for jesting among his courtiers. This fact is well 
exemplified by Shakespeare's ironical allusions in the person 
of sundry nobles : 

Lord Cham. It seems the marriage with his brother's wife 

Has crept too near his conscience. 
Duke of Suffolk. No, his conscience 

Has crept too near another lady. 

* W. T. Trench: "Shakespeare's Hamlet", A New Commentary, London, 1903, 
p. 54. 

[49] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

Duke of Norfolk. 'Tis so: 

He counsels a divorce; a loss of her 
That, like a jewel, has hung twenty years 
About his neck, yet never lost her luster, 
Of her that loves him with that excellence 
That angels love good men with, even of her 
That when the greatest stroke of fortune falls, 
Will bless the King ; and is not this course pious ? 

Lord Cham. Heaven keep me from such counsel; 'Tis 
most true 
These news are everywhere; every tongue speaks 'em, 
And every true heart weeps for 't; all that dare 
Look into these affairs see this main end." 

(Hen. VIII. 2. ii.) 

Professor Trench further intimates that the audiences 
of Shakespeare adjudged the marriage of Catherine to be as 
void as Gertrude's; "for if it were not so, Queen Elizabeth 
would have had little right to occupy the throne." 5 Such 
an opinion is discredited by the history of the times. 6 Though 
the statute by which Elizabeth had been pronounced illegiti- 
mate was still in force, she ascended the throne without op- 
position. Of her right there could be no doubt. It had 
been established by the statute for the thirty fifth Henry 
VIII. 7 and nothing, therefore remained for the two houses but 
to recognize the accession of the new sovereign. She was wel- 
comed by both the Catholic and Protestant parties. The for- 
mer believed that her conversion to the ancient faith which 
she professed during the reign of her sister, was real and sin- 
cere; the latter, while lamenting her apostacy, persuaded 
themselves that her sentiments were feigned. " It is probable 
that, in her own mind, she was indifferent to either form of 
worship ; but her ministers, whose prospects depended on the 

5 Ibidem, p. 257. 6 "Lingard's History of England", Vol. VI, c. I. 

7 "Henry's many marriages and divorces had so complicated the question of the 
succession, that Parliament, to avoid disputes after Henry's death, had 
given him power to settle the matter by will. This he did, directing that 
the crown should descend to his son Edward and his heirs; in case Ed- 
ward dies childless, it was to go to Mary and her heirs, and then to 
Elizabeth and her heirs." Myers' "Mediaeval and Modern History", p. 
415. See also Lingard's "History of England',' Vol. V, p. 225. 

[50] 



HAMLET'S RIGHT TO THE CROWN 

change, urged their mistress to reject and proscribe the 
religion which proclaimed her a bastard, and to support the 
reformed doctrines which alone could give stability to her 
throne. 8 

If the drama does not enter upon antecedent details, 
it is because it already presupposes three accomplished facts : 
the murder of Hamlet's father, the incestuous marriage of 
Claudius, and the Prince defrauded of the crown. To make 
the drama retroactive would retard the action of a tragedy 
already overcrowded with incidents, and give too great a 
prominence to Claudius to the detriment of the main char- 
acter. Shakespeare does, however, emphasize more than once 
the all-important fact that the marriage of Claudius was only 
putative or supposed, and therefore null and void, and this 
fact he would impress upon our minds by frequent repeti- 
tions. Hence, he causes Hamlet to speak of it so often as a 
matter of deep grief, to charge his mother with criminal 
conduct, to implore her to abandon her unholy and shameful 
union with his uncle : 

Queen. 0, Hamlet, speak no more! 

Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul, 

And there I see such black and grained spots 

As will not leave their tinct. 
Hamlet. Nay, but to live 

Stew'd in corruption, — 
Queen. 0, speak to me no more! 

These words, like daggers, enter into mine ears, 

No more, sweet Hamlet ! 
Hamlet. Confess thyself to heaven; 

Repent what's past, avoid what is to come; 

And do not spread the compost on the weeds, 

To make them ranker. 
Queen. 0, Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain. 
Hamlet. 0, throw away the worser part of it, 

And live the purer with the other half. 

Good night! But go not to mine uncle's bed; 

Assume a virtue if you have it not. 

8 Lingard — Ibidem. 

[51] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

The Poet even causes the King himself, when attempting 
repentance, to confess the futility of hope of pardon, unless 
he restore the crown and abandon his criminal union: 

" Forgive me my foul murder 
That cannot be; since I am still possess 'd 
Of those effects for which I did the murder, 
My crown, mine own ambition and my Queen. 
May one be pardoned and retained the offence?" 

If then from the play itself, it is evident that the mar- 
riage of Claudius is incestuous and unlawful, and in fact 
no marriage, it can confer on him no claim nor right to the 
throne ; and, in consequence, if he be de facto king, he is not so 
de jure, and must, therefore, be considered an imposter and 
actual usurper. 



[52J 



CHAPTER VIII 

The Real or Assumed Madness 
of Hamlet 

, The mooted question of the Prince's sanity has divided 
thej readers of Shakespeare into two opposing schools; the 
ojj- 3 defending a feigned, and the other an unfeigned mad- 
r pp. The problem arises from the Poet's unrivalled genius 
^ ! w the creation of characters. So vivid were his concep- 
f ! Jns of his ideal creations that, actually living and acting 
lj' them, he gives them an objective existence in which 
^fey seem living realities, or persons walking among us, 
endowed with our human emotions and passions, and sub- 
ject to the vicisitudes of our common mortality. The con- 
fo funding of this ideal with the real has given rise to two 
divergent schools. The critics of the one, unmindful of the 
fo],ct that Hamlet is wholly an ideal existence, are accus- 
t< >med to look upon him as real and actual as the men they 
d/taily meet in social intercourse, and accordingly judge him 
s they would a man in ordinary life. The other school, 
ignoring the different impersonations of Hamlet upon the 
public stage, considers him only as an ideal existence, and 
places the solution of the problem in the discovery of the 
^dramatist's intention in the creation of the character. 
, The Poet with consummate art has so portrayed the 
i P ^normal actions of a demented mind, and so truly pic- 
ked all the traits of genuine madness, even in its minutest 
. fmptoms, that a real madman could not enact the character 
7 lore perfectly. Conscious of his skill in this portrayal so 
t rue to life, he has in consequence depicted the court of 
C ilaudius divided in opinion on Hamlet 's feigned or un- 
f( signed madness, just as the Shakespearean world is divided 
I [53] 



0,i 

it 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

uo-day. To say that the Queen, and Polonius, and otb' erg 
thought him mad, is no proof of his real madness ; but oi^y 
that by his perfect impersonation he succeeded in creatf™ 
this belief; and that such was his purpose is clear fi om 
the play. If the court firmly believed in the dementia of fae 
Prince, Claudius, who was of a deeper and more penetrate 
mind and an adept in crafty cunning, stood firm in j^ 
doubt from the first. The consciousness of his guilt ni* l( j e 
him alert and, like a criminal ever fearing detection, ^ e 
suspected the concealment of some evil design under H* m _ 
let's mimic madness. If to-day we find eminent physicnL^ 
standing with Polonius and the Queen in the belief" a 
Hamlet's real madness, we see on the opposite side oth . . ■ 
with the astute king and an overwhelming majority s 
Shakespeare's readers. That many physicians should dee , 
the Prince's madness a reality is nothing surprising. W< 
known are the celebrated legal cases in which medic a j 
specialists of the highest rank were divided in judgme Q | 
on the sanity or insanity of the man on trial. 

Let a man mimic madness as perfectly as Hamlet, a: 1( j 
be summoned to court on trial of his sanity. If it )e 
shown by judicial evidence, that before beginning to ena,j. 
the role of madman, he had never throughout his life exh_ 
bited the least symptom of dementia, but, on the contrary 
was known as a man of a sound and strong mind; if it b, 
shown that before assuming the antics of a madman, h 
had actually summoned his trusted friends, informed ther 
of his purpose, cautioned them against betrayal, and eve] 
sworn them to secrecy; if it be proved that on every occa 
sion, when moving among his intimate friends, he is c 
sistently sane, and feigns madness only in presence of tho , 
who, he fears, will thwart his secret design; and if it I 
shown on reputable testimony that he entered upon h^ 
course of dementia to guard an incommunicable secret, ar^ 
to shield himself in the pursuit of a specified end, diffici^. 

[54] 






■RjRsSUM 



REAL OR«SSUMED MADNESS 



% 



ajid dangerous of attainment ; such a man on such evidence 
m }uld in open court be declared beyond all doubt sane and 
soiund of mind by the unanimous verdict of any specially 
impanelled jury. 

\ The mad role that Hamlet plays to perfection, is cer- 
tainly a proof of Shakespeare's genius, but by no means a 
Jrety of the insanity of the Prince, unless we be prepared 
t3 maintain that no one save a madman can simulate de- 
mentia. If, as Lowell has well remarked, Shakespeare him- 
self without being mad, could so observe and remember all 
lie abnormal symptoms of insanity as to reproduce them, 
why should it be beyond the power of an ideal Hamlet, born 
nto dramatic life, to reproduce them in himself any more 
an the many tragedians, who, since Shakespeare's day, 
have so successfully mimicked the madness of the Prince 
u ipon the public stage? 

The perfect portrayal of Hamlet's mad role has been 
ascribed to the unaided genius of Shakespeare. The char- 
acter, it is thought, is nothing more than the outward ex- 
pression of the Poet's subjective and purely mental crea- 
tion. Such a notion, while highly magnifying the powers 
( 3f the artist, is, however, contrary to psychological facts, 
pur ideas are mental images of things perceived by the 
g enses. They depend upon their objective realities no less 
j;han does an image upon the thing which it images. The 
dictum of Aristotle : * ' There are no ideas in our intellect 
which we have not derived from sense perception," has 
pecome an axiom of rational philosophy. If then all natural 
knowledge originates in sense perception, Shakespeare 's per- 
fect knowledge of the symptoms of insanity was not the 
product of his imagination alone, but was due to his obser- 
vation of these symptoms existing in real human beings, 
jlis portrayal is admittedly true to nature, and it is true to 
nature, because a reflex or reproduction of what he himself 
had witnessed in demented unfortunates. This fact has 
\ [55] 



J 
THE RIDDLES OF x^AMLET 



been placed beyond reasonable doubt by a legal docum£?it 
which was recently discovered in the Boll's Office, London. 1 
From it we learn that Shakespeare lived on Muggleton 
Street, directly opposite a medical college near which was 
an insane asylum. Here, by studying the antics of the in- 
mates, he had every opportunity to draw from nature, whfn 
engaged in the creation of his mad characters. It is theru 
fore more reasonable to infer that his accurate knowledge 
of traits which are common to the demented was not solely 
the product of his imagination, but rather the result of hr^ 
studied observations of individual cases. T 

Since Hamlet then on the testimony of medical experts 
exhibits accurately all the symptoms of dementia, the ques- 
tion of his real or pretended madness can be solved only bv 
ascertaining the intention of the Poet. We may safely as- 
sume that a dramatist so renowned in his art has not left 
us in darkness concerning a factor most important in this 
drama. In our doubt we may turn for light to other dra- 
mas wherein he portrays demented characters with equal 
skill. Nowhere can we find more striking elements of con- 
trast and resemblance than in Lear and Ophelia. The 
grandeur of Lear in his sublime outbursts of a mighty pas- 
sion, differs surprisingly from the pathetic inanities of the 
gentle Ophelia; yet Shakespeare leaves no doubt of the 
genuine madness of the one and the other. In Lear, supreme 
ingratitude, blighting the affections of a fond and over- 
confiding parent, has wrecked his noble mind; in Ophelia 
the loss of a father by the hand of a lover, whose "noble 
and most sovereign reason" she has seemingly blasted by 
rejecting his importunate suit, has over-powered her feel- 
ings, and left her "divided from herself and her fair judg- 
ment, without the which we're pictures, or mere beasts.'/ 

1 The document is a record of a lawsuit of a Huguenot familiy with whom 
Shakespeare boarded, and in whose interest he appeared several times as a 
sworn witness in court. 

[56] 



REAL OR ASSUMED MADNESS 



i 



loth Lear and Ophelia are portrayed as genuinely 1 

1 nevertheless, unlike Hamlet, they disclose no purpose^ 

design in their madness, nor seek to conceal the cause 

[their distress. On the contrary they always have on their 

>s utterances which directly or indirectly reveal the rea- 

|n of their mental malady. 

Far otherwise is it with Edgar and with Hamlet. Hence, 
comparison of the nature of their madness may be a flash 
c. light in darkness. Both are pictured as feigning mad- 
less. If Edgar, the victim of a brother's treachery, enacts 
n his banishment the role of a fool with a perfection which 
ludes discovery; so does Hamlet, the victim of his uncle's 
reachery, deceive by his mimic madness all but the crafty 
ling. Both, unlike Lear and Ophelia, enter upon their 
leigned madness for an expressed specific purpose, and both, 
far from revealing the real cause of their grief, are ever 
on the alert to conceal it; because its discovery would frus- 
trate the object of their pursuit. As in the drama of Lear, 
the Poet has left no possible doubt of the real madness of 
the king, and of the feigned insanity of Edgar, so also we 
may reasonably expect to find in his Tragedy of Hamlet, not 
only clear proofs of Ophelia's madness, but also, sufficient 
indications of the Prince's feigned dementia. 
I The first of these indications is the fact that the assumed 
madness of Hamlet is in conformity with the original story, 
s told in the old runic rhymes of the Norsemen. Consider- 
moreover the exigencies of the plot and counterplots, the 
tflple of madman seems evidently forced upon him. As soon 
he had recovered from the terrible and overpowering 
itation of mind and feelings with which the ghostly reve- 
laltion had afflicted him, he realized that the world had 
cllianged about him ; that he himself had changed, and that 
h/e could no longer comport himself as before at the court 
o|f Claudius. This change, he feels he cannot fully conceal, 
nd, therefore, welcomes the thought of hiding his real 

[57] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

^ f f behind the mask of a madman. But he must play bi 
^role, not indifferently, but with such perfection of truthful 
reality as to deceive the whole court, and above all, if Mi 
sible, his arch-enemy, the astute and cunning King. W\ 
this in view, the dramatist had of necessity to pdL 
tray the hero's madness with all the traits of a real affli, n 
tion; for, if the court could discover Hjlnlet's madness lj 
be unreal, his design and purpose Ifomd be thereby de 
feated. ^^ 

It seems evident that the Poet in the very concept oi 
the plot and its development, intended, in the portrayal oW 
Hamlet's antic disposition, to produce the impression of in 1 
i sanity, and, nevertheless, by a flashlight here and there, U 
expose to us the truth as known alone to himself 
and to Hamlet's initiated friends. Throughout the first 
Act, wherein the Prince is pictured in acute mental grie e 
at the loss of his loved father and the shameful conduct o 
his mother, there is nothing even to suggest the notion o; 
dementia. It is only after the appalling revelations of th* 1 
ghost, which exposed the secret criminals and his own horril 
situation that he resolved to wear the mask of a madman i\ 
the furtherance of his suddenly formed plan of "revenge.' 
Hence, at once confiding his purpose to his two trustel 
friends and swearing them to secrecy, he begins to play tie 
part and to impress upon the court the notion of his lunac r . 

Had Shakespeare failed to shed this strong light upoi 
Hamlet's purpose, he would certainly have left room i>r 
doubt; but not satisfied with this, he scatters through tie 
drama other luminous marks, to guide our dubious path. A, 
strong mark is found in the many soliloquies in which tie 
Prince, giving way to the intensity of his feelings, expresses 
the inmost thoughts of his heart; in them were surely of- 
fered ample opportunities to expose, here and there, sone 
trace of his supposed affliction. But it is remarkably 
strange that never, like the insane, does he lapse in his frJ- 

[58] 



REAL OR ASSUMED MADNESS 

quent monologues into irrelevant and incoherent speech, nor 
use incongruous and inane words. Another luminous index 
is Hamlet's intercourse with his school-fellow and sole bosom 
friend, the scholarly Horatio. The Prince throughout takes 
him into his confidence, and Horatio, therefore, surely knew 
his mental condition ; yet in mutual converse, whether in pub- 
lic or in private, he always supposes his friend to be rational, 
and never, by any sign or word, does he manifest friendly 
sentime:,*- ? sorrow or of sympathy, as he naturally would, 
if ignorant of the feigned madness of Hamlet. Horatio is 
well aware that everyone assumes his friend to be demented, 
and, nevertheless, because true to him and to his sworn 
promise of secrecy, he does nothing to dispel, but rather 
lends himself to sustain the common delusion. Another 
striking indication is the Prince's treatment of Rosencrantz 
and Guildenstern. After worming out their secret mission 
from the King, Hamlet partly lifts the veil for us in the 
words : 

Ham. But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived. 
Guil. In what my dear lord? 

Ham. I am but mad north-north-west; when the wind is 
southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw." 

Again, Hamlet's instruction to the players, his cautious 
direction to Horatio, as well as his skillful intermittent play 
of madness when in the same scene he addresses Horatio, 
Ophelia, the King, and Polonius, display, not only a sane, but 
also a master mind, versatile in wit, and ready to meet cun- 
ning subterfuge with artifice at every point. If he were 
really mad, he could never have preserved such perfect con- 
sistency in word and action towards so many people under 
rapid change of circumstances ; always sane in dealing with 
his friends, and always simulating madness in presence of 
l.hose whom he mistrusted. Once he was obliged to raise his 
Vizor in presence of his mother. It was in the formal inter- 

[59] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

view, when she sought to shelter herself against his merciless 
moral onslaught by asserting his madness. But by unmask- 
ing himself he baffled her, and proceeded in a terrible but 
righteous wrath to lacerate her dormant conscience, till he 
awakened her to the shameful sense of her criminal state and 
to manifest contrition. 

An objection to Hamlet's sanity is sometimes seen in 
his own alleged confession of madness. He seeks pardon, 
they say, from Laertes for his violence against him on the 
plea of madness. This objection is rather an argument to the 
contrary ; for insane persons are never known to plead insa- 
nity in self-exculpation. The objection, moreover, is not 
valid, because it is based upon a misinterpretation of the 
word madness. The madness of which Hamlet speaks in the 
present instance and which he pleads in excuse, is not a fixed 
mental malady, but what in common parlance is a madness 
synonymous with a sudden outburst of anger, in which self- 
control is lost for the moment. Such was the madness of 
Hamlet, when in sudden anger he slew Polonius, and again, 
when at Ophelia's grave, his mighty grief was roused to 
wrathful expression by the unseemly and exaggerated show 
of Laertes. 

All these indications scattered through the drama are 
intermittent flashes, which, amid the darkness of doubt, illu- 
mine the objective truth of Hamlet's feigned madness. But 
there is still another and independent truth which, though 
already alluded to by a few eminent critics, merits here a 
fuller consideration. This truth grows to supreme importance 
when viewed in relation to Shakespeare and his dramatic 
art. A little reflection on the nature and principles 
of art will engender a repugnance to any theory of Hamlet's 
real madness. Art is the expression of the beautiful, and - x 
dramatic poetry is a work of art, and like every other art it " 
has its canons and its principles. If poetry be the langua^ ■; 
of passion and of enlivened imagination ; if its purpose be to - 

[60] 



REAL OR ASSUMED MADNESS 

afford intellectual pleasure by the excitement of agreeable, 
and elevated, and pathetic emotions; this certainly is not 
accomplished by holding up to view the vagaries of a mind 
stricken with dementia. The prime object of tragic poetry is 
to expose some lofty and solemn theme so graphically that 
its very portrayal will awaken in our moral nature a love of 
virtue and a detestation of vice. This verily is not effected 
by delineating the mad antics of some unfortunate whose dis- 
ordered mind leaves him helpless to the mercy of the shifting 
winds of circumstances, and irresponsible to the moral laws 
of human life. No spectator can discover in the portrayal 
of the irrational actions of a madman an expression of the 
beautiful, It gives no intellectual pleasure, stirs no pleasing 
emotion, and engenders no love of virtue and hatred of vice. 
Nothing, it is true, may be so abhorrent to our world of 
existences, but may,, in some form or other, be brought 
under the domain of art. ''Men's evil passions have given 
tragedy to art; crime is beautified by being linked to an 
avenging Nemesis ; ugliness is clothed with a special form of 
art in the grotesque." Even pain and suffering become at- 
tractive in the light of heroism which endures them in the 
cause of truth and justice. In consequence, the dramatist 
enjoys the privilege of portraying characters of every hue, of 
mingling the ignoble with the noble, and of picturing life in 
all its varied forms, with the view that the contemplation of 
such characters will excite pleasure or displeasure, and moral 
admiration or aversion in every healthy mind. This is true 
only when these characters are not pitiable mental wrecks, 
but agents free, rational, and responsible. A healthy mind 
can find nothing but displeasure and revulsion of feeling at 
the sorry sight of a fellow-being whose reason is dethroned, 
and who as a mere automaton concentrates in his mental 
malady the chief elements of the tragedy and its development 
» i>f plot. A drama so constructed is intellectually and morally 
x ^repugnant to human nature. Rob the hero of intelligence 

[61] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

and consciousness of moral responsibility, and you make the 
work devoid of human interest and leave it wholly meaning- 
less. Such an unfortunate should not be paraded before the 
public gaze in defiance of the common feelings of humanity ; 
but in all kindness, be relegated to the charitable care of 
some home or refuge. 

In brief : Hamlet is the tragedy ; deprive him of reason 
and there remains no tragic motive. All is, however, changed 
by the admission of his feigned madness. His sanity admit- 
ted, the drama becomes at once magnificent and inspiring, 
and, by a master-stroke of genius, shines forth in a new and 
wondrous light, possessing a tragic motive, supremely instruc- 
tive and thrilling in the sad wreck of a nature noble and 
grand in soul, and rich in rare endowments of mind and 
body. 



| 02 



CHAPTER IX 

Hamlet's Alleged Defed of Character 

Another mystery of the tragedy that baffles many readers 
is the apparent vacillation which the hero exhibits in obeying 
the command of the ghost. Its solution has divided all com- 
mentators into two opposing subjective and objective schools. 
The former, which has until recent times held almost undis- 
puted sway, attributes the reasons- for Hamlet's delay solely 
to personal and temperamental difficulties, and maintains 
that any solution of the mystery must involve weakness of 
will as the key to the mystery. Its adherents, however, do not 
agree upon the precise cause of Hamlet's vacillation. Some 
accept the ' sentimental' theory as expounded by Goethe: 

"A lovely, pure, noble, and most moral nature, without 
the strength of nerve which forms heroes, sinks beneath a 
burden which it cannot bear, and must not cast away. 
All duties are holy to him; the present is too hard. Im- 
possibilities have been required of him; not in themselves 
impossibilities, but such for him. Shakespeare's intention 
was to exhibit the effects of a great action imposed as a - 
duty upon a mind unfit for its accomplishment. A pure 
and highly moral disposition without energy of soul that 
constitutes a hero sinks under the load which it cannot 
support nor resolve to abandon.' ' 

The fundamental principle of this theory, says Professor 
Bradley, 1 has been so isolated, developed, and popularized 
as to give us a picture of a graceful youth, sweet and sensi- 
tive, full of delicate sympathies and yearning aspirations, 
shrinking from the touch of everything gross and earthly; 
bat frail and weak, a kind of Werther, with a face like 
Shelley, and a voice like Mr. Tree's. Looking at such a pic- $ 
ti^re, we feel instinctively a tender pity, and ask, how Ham- 

1 "Shakespearean Tragedy", p. 101. 

[63] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

let can perform the terrible duty laid upon him? How fool- 
ish, indeed, was the ghost even to suggest such an idea ! This 
theory is too kind to Hamlet on the one side, and quite un- 
just to him on the other. For the sentimental Hamlet the 
reader can feel only pity not unmingled with contempt. 

Others find more acceptable the ' ' Conscience Theory, ' ' as 
excogitated by Ulrici : 

"In Hamlet, we should behold the Christian struggling 
with the natural man, and its demand for revenge. The 
natural man spurs him on to immediate action, and charges 
his doubts with cowardice and irresolution; the Christian 
spirit — though, indeed, as a feeling rather than as a con- 
viction — draws him back, though still resisting. He hesi- 
tates and delays, and tortures himself with a vain attempt 
to reconcile these conflicting impulses and between them to 
preserve his own liberty of will and action . . . the 
mind of Hamlet .... is throughout struggling to 
retain\the mastery which the judgment ought invariably 
hold over the will." 2 

Others prefer to follow the 'Weakness of Will Theory' as 
presented by Schlegel and Coleridge : 

"In Hamlet, Shakespeare seems to have wished to ex- 
emplify the moral necessity of a due balance between 
our attention to the objects of our senses and our medita- 
tion on the working of our minds, — an equilibrium be- 
tween the real and the imaginary worlds. In Hamlet, this 
balance is disturbed; hence we see a great and an almost 
enormous, intellectual activity, and a proportionate aver- 
sion to real action consequent upon it, with all its symp- 
toms and accompanying qualities. This character Shake- 
speare places in circumstances under which it is obliged 
to act on the spur of the moment. Hamlet is brave and 
careless of death; but he vacillates from sensibility, and 
procrastinates from thought, and loses the power of ac- 
tion in the energy of resolve. ,, 

This theory has been the most widely accepted view in 
the English-speaking world. But against it may be very well 

2 "Shakespeare's Dramatische Kunst". 

[64] 



THE CHARACTER OF HAMLET 

neath the wildness of his youth his friends discover them as 
soon as he mounts the throne. What they say of him is veri- 
fied in Hamlet : 

Hear him but reason in divinity, 

And all admiring with an inward wish 

You would desire the King were made a prelate; 

Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs 

You'll say it hath been all in all his study; 

List his discourse of war, and you shall hear 

A fearful battle rendered you in music; 

Turn him to any course of policy 

The Gordian Knot of it he will unloose 

Familiar as his^ garter; that when he speaks, 

The air, a chartered libertine, is still, 

And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears 

To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences. 

Further, Prince Hal is opposed to the impatient Hotspur 
and is anxious to try his skill in arms with him. Like Hamlet 
he does not think much of himself, and cares little for mere 
reputation. Hotspur like Laertes is hot tempered, oversensi- 
tive of personal honor, lacks self-control, and is wholly want- 
ing in equipoise of character. Prince Hal like Hamlet holds 
his true self well-guarded in reserve, and consorts for a time 
with Falstaff and his crew, as Hamlet does with the Players. 
Henry is eminently a religious and conscientious man, and 
hesitates to involve two nations in bloodshed until he is fully 
assured of the justice of his cause. In like manner Hamlet 
delays the bloody work of "revenge" till he obtains un- 
equivocal and tangible proofs of his uncle's guilt. Henry, 
however, is not without his gloomy hours, nor is he always in 
the vein for doffing the world aside. His picture sketches in 
outline the very image of Prince Hamlet : — 

For he is gracious, if he be observed; 

He hath a tear for pity and a hand 

Open as day for melting charity; 

Yet notwithstanding, being incensed, he's flint, 

As humorous as winter and as sudden 

As flows congealed in the spring of day, 

/ [73] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

His temper, therefore, must be well observed 
Chide him for faults, and do it reverently, 
When you perceive his blood inclined to mirth; 
But being moody, give him line and scope. 

Such a prince, if harassed by deep mental grief, would easily 
fall a victim to gloom and melancholy. 

Though with the opening of the play, Hamlet be en- 
veloped in gloom and afflicted with grief, which induce a great 
and continued depression of spirits, it is clear that his natural 
temperament was far from melancholic. He is characterized 
as refined and courteous, princely in dignity and royal in 
manners, in form prepossessing, in temperament imaginative, 
in feelings sensitive and generous, and with a deep sense of 
propriety and respect for the moral order of things. Adorned 
with virtuous qualities and a wisdom uncommon to his years, 
he was before his father's death, unacquainted with dishonor, 
vice, and the sorrows of life, and lived enamored of the beau- 
ties of nature and the goodness and happiness in humanity 
around him. 

In those happier days, his was not the life of a mere 
student, nor was he peculiarly addicted to moody reflection, 
nor indisposed to action, but on the contrary, his must have 
been other qualities such as are loved and admired by the 
masses, and which won for him popular favor, and in fact 
made him the idol of Denmark. All know him to love and 
admire him. To the valiant Fortinbras he was a soldier, nor 
did he lose his love for military skill even in his saddest and 
gloomiest days. To Ophelia and the court, who knew him 
more intimately, he was, moreover, a scholar and a courtier, 
the pride of the state, ' ' the glass of fashion and the mould of 
form, the observed of all observers. ' ' 

From certain hints in the play and from logical inferences, 
we may reasonably surmise what was Hamlet's natural dis- 
position. In other and sunny days, when unstricken by af- 
fliction, he was not prone to gloomy and brooding thoughtful-. 

[74] 



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[AMLET 

witty comparisons and 
$e sorrow, he turns for 
ith every visitor. His 
[which betoken his de- 
^morous jest, nor play 
ids in the absurdities 
t is depressing gloom 
:essible traits of his 
issed, is not over- 

lence. At every 
^y overpowers his 
trying circum- 
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ghostly revela- 
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is 



THE CHARACTER OF HAMLET 

sincerity. In hatred of mere show he decries the hypocritical 
mourning of Claudius and Gertrude. His esteem of true 
worth prompts him to seek the friendship of a scholar who 
though poor is honest and sincere, and his contempt for every- 
thing pretentious leads him to dislike and ridicule Polonius 
and Osric. Impatient of distinctions of rank and wealth, he 
loves Ophelia, treats the Players as honored courtiers, and sees 
no real difference between Kings and beggars. An aversion 
to the false sharpens his shafts of irony against Rosencrantz 
and Guildenstern's betrayal of friendship, against Ophelia's 
theatrical part and lie in the "espials," and her use of cos- 
metics and artificial adornments. His indignation at the dis- 
honor cast upon his sincere love by Polonius, and its apparent 
belief by his intended, is scarcely masked, and irritates him to 
words of withering scorn against the "foolish prating knave." 
Hamlet was affectionate by nature. Characteristically 
generous and devoid of suspicion, he was accustomed to ap- 
preciate every one at his best. This is revealed in his gracious 
and warm reception of the young spies and in his inability 
to discern the cause of Laertes' anger. He professes to have 
"loved him ever" and terms him "a very noble youth," 
though he was in truth but a base dissembler, who was even 
then conspiring with the prince of hypocrites for Hamlet 's 
immediate assassination. His affection for Ophelia was pure 
and noble. Enamored of her innocence, simplicity, and sweet- 
ness, he loved her ardently, even though his exalted rank 
seemed to bar their union. Strong as was that love, he sacri- 
ficed it upon the altar of his sworn resolve with greatest 
pain and only when, after testing her, he found her too weak 
in character to share his secret, and to become a partner in 
his project of "revenge." We might never realize the depth 
of that love, had not Laertes' turgid show of grief aroused 
the dormant passion of a man who ' ' loved her more than forty *► 
thousand brothers. ' ' 

[77] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

His affection for his mother surpassed that filial love which 
is common to every son. Never suspecting anything unworthy, 
he had from the habit of idealizing made her better and more 
worthy than she was; and accordingly, in sensitive refine- 
ment, he had also intensified his love to like magnitude. Hence, 
on discovering the fickleness and unworthiness of his fond 
idol, there arose a grief in proportion with his love. Though 
her disgraceful conduct shamed and dishonored him ; though 
it shook his whole moral nature, and struck a vital blow at his 
heart, and shattered his ideal love; she was still his mother, 
and he continued to respect, to honor, and to love her, as he 
might, according to the divine command. It was this strong 
and surviving affection for his erring mother, that inspired 
his noble effort to lead her back to virtue; and this effort is 
disclosed in a grand moral invective of the highest power, 
wherein he holds the mirror of her sin, and shame, and dis- 
grace before her eyes, and urges her to repentance and con- 
fession. 

But the Prince's affectionate nature is, above all, mani- 
fested in reverence for his father. It was a reverence born 
of an idolizing love, whose vehemence is again and again 
forced upon us. If a person's grief at the loss of some dear 
one, is equal to the love which was felt for that individual, 
then Hamlet's intense sorrow is a proof of a filial love unsur- 
passed in warmth and sincerity of feeling. His was a child- 
like love, noble in its genuine simplicity, and replete with un- 
reasoning filial piety and devotion. From his mother, who 
had proved traitorous to his fond dream, he turned in satis- 
faction to his noble father, in whom at least he saw verified 
his high ideals. With profoundest affection he could truly say 
of him: 

"He was a man, take him for all in all 
I shall not look upon his like again.' ' 

[78] 



THE CHARACTER OF HAMLET 

In unbounded love and reverence, he as wont to meditate upon 
his grand character, noble bearing, virtues, and achievements, 
until he seemed actually to perceive in him ''the grace of 
Apollo," "the front of Jove," and "the eye of Mars." This 
vehemence of his love allowed him to see naught in his kingly 
sire, save 

"A combination and a form indeed, 
Where every god did seem to set his seal 
To give the world assurance of a man." 



Preeminence in intellectual gifts and culture raises Ham- 
let above the common plane of those about him. If his con- 
templative mind possesses deep inner experience, his well 
balanced powers give him ease of observation. His is a ver- 
satility of intellect which is marked by quickness of percep- 
tion and rapid change of mental attitude. It is exhibited in 
philosophical abstractions, in keen reflections regarding men 
and matters, in bantering jests and wilting satire, and in readi- 
ness to divine the thoughts, and fathom the motives of all 
who seek to pierce his guise. With wondrous facility, he is 
equally at home in impersonating the madman, and in his 
own natural character. 

The most striking trait of Hamlet is his exquisite moral 
sensibility. It is the master chord in the symphony of his char- 
acter. His delicate conscience vibrates in harmony at the 
touch of virtue, and in discord at that of evil. To his ethically 
refined soul, vice seems naught but a hideous moral cancer, 
preying upon the human form. A strong sense of morality, 
based on a practical belief of Christian principles, enables 
him with intuitive glance to sweep the moral heavens, and to 
read therein the natural or divine law in its relation to human 
life and action, and to comprehend the hostility intrinsic to 
repellent forces of good and evil. It is this keen moral sense, 
ever manifest in his love for the good, the beautiful, and the 

[79] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

true, that ennobles and embellishes a character which, already 
strongly marked by agreeable qualities, wins universal love 
and admiration. 

In illustration of the delicacy of the Prince's moral char- 
acter, we may recall the apt and beautiful comparison of Dr. 
Onimus in La Psychologie de Shakespeare. There are child- 
ren who are born musicians, whom a single false note irritates. 
No discordant note can escape them, and they cannot com- 
prehend how others differently organized, should be devoid 
of sense of harmony. Others again are born with an ex- 
quisite sense of color and form, and anything at variance 
with their artistic temperament wounds and repels them. 
Hamlet is one of these artistic natures. He is an artist of the 
moral sense. Born with a feeling the most delicate for every- 
thing that is virtuous and noble, he is enamored of truth and 
virtue, just as the musician is of harmony, and the sculptor 
and painter of ideal form. Hence vices and weaknesses which 
mar our human nature, shock him as hideous monstrosities. 
This is manifest in the loathing he endures, when in contact 
with flatterers and hypocrites, as well as in his inclination to 
expose and humiliate them. The reprobate is his natural 
enemy; and his heart's revolt in their presence is similar to 
the shrinking feeling of disgust, which Marguerite feels in 
the presence of Mephistopheles. On the other hand, with 
what pleasure does he grasp the frank and loyal hand of 
Horatio ! The very presence of a true and honest man soothes 
his heart, and makes humanity seem less hateful. 

Such honest, noble men were few about him, and in the 
new situation, he felt his isolation keenly. Surprising, there- 
fore, and painful was the transformed scene, which met his 
gaze on return from the ' ' school at Wittenberg. " If a sense of 
honor and of Christian virtue had maintained decorum at his 
father's court, life at Elsinore was now disgraced by an up- 
roarious crew of bacchanalian satyrs. As the fratricidal King, 

[80] 



THE CHARACTER OF HAMLET 

so were the courtiers, parasites, strong in eye and lip service, 
arid shallow in mental and moral culture. Hamlet was, there- 
fore, light in despising a courtly life, where a smiling mur- 
derous villain and an incestuous queen were the sad measure 
of morality. Since such a life, so abhorrent to his noble na- 
ture, was in contradiction to his high ideals and aspirations, 
as well as repulsive to his refined moral feelings, he would 
live and move at court, like a denizen of another world, who 
understood nothing of their language and their customs. 
Impelled by a moral courage, as superior to the physical as 
it is more noble, he would dare set himself above an evil 
court, and measure everyone by the true standard of Christian 
honor and principles of morality. The commission entrusted 
to him by the purgatorial visitor might be considered divine, 
and in its fulfilment, he would first direct all his energies to 
bring back to virtue a fickle Queen, and then, even at the 
cost of life, depose and punish a murderous usurper. Thus 
would he vindicate law and justice, and restore peace to the 
disturbed social and moral order. In the accomplishment of 
all this, he resolved to keep his eye ever fixed on the guiding 
polar star of Christian faith, in order to preserve himself un- 
tainted from contact with evil; and to the very last, through 
heart-sickness and mental torture, he adhered unswervingly 
to duty and to the love of good and abhorrence of evil. 

He wins our sympathy from his very first appearance, 
and it deepens as, Act by Act, he unfolds the grandeur of 
his noble character. Moving all alone amid sycophants of a 
hostile court, with no friend or counselor save Horatio, he 
dares reveal his gloomy thoughts and feelings only in solilo- 
quy, or under the mask of madness. When we see him en- 
gulfed in gloom, or glowing in the height of passion, or strug- 
gling with shifting shoals and currents ; when we hear him ut- 
tering in philosophic mood words of practical wisdom or 
moral reflections on human life ; when we view him in playful 

[81] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

badinage and intermittent brilliant plays of irony and wit, in 
which all contestants appear as puppets in his hands; we 
watch in charm and admiration his perfect portrayal of the 
madman, and listen with fellow-feeling and wrapt interest 
to the revelation of the secrets of his heart. Turbulent im- 
pulses, often at war with conscience, impel him to sweep with 
ruthless hand the gamut of human passions, and we hear the 
chords vibrate, now with love or hatred, now with hope or 
despair. As in heart frozen with terror or softened to pity, 
he fluctuates between wonder and awe, between anguish and 
mental exaltation; as in mind keenly edged by preternatural 
visitings, he walks with the sole light of Christian principles, 
amid the deep shadows of an unexplored mysterious realm, 
we accompany him in religious reverence and apprehension 
on the border-land of another world. In some manner we 
feel identified with him throughout. His emotions and 
thoughts are our own. Forgetful of self, we become absorbed 
in his personality, as we see humanity in turn absorbed in 
him. In him, as in a mirror, each generation in the flight of 
time, has seen itself reflected, for the stage of action in this 
drama is the world of every age, and its hero, involved now 
in gloom and now in sunshine, and the varying moods of 
doubt and suffering, represents mankind. He is a grand 
philosopher of thought, whose pathetic figure, rare gifts of 
genius, refined Christian morals, nobleness of character and 
personal charm, have led the many to recognize in him the 
protagonist in our drama of human life. 



[82] 



$art g>econb 



A NEW COMMENTARY 

on 
THE TRAGEDY of HAMLET 

PRINCE OF DENMARK 



ACT FIRST 
SCENE FIRST 

WEIRD EXPECTANCY 

At the very opening of the drama, the Poet strikes the 
note which shall dominate the Play throughout. His usual 
practice, as seen in many of his dramas, is to foreshadow the 
action from the very start, and to acquaint his auditors with 
the situation of affairs. The Tragedy of Macbeth opens with 
a weird scene in a bleak desert, where evil spirits in human 
form premeditate an attack upon the soul of the leading 
character. The first scene in Richard III. reveals not only 
the course of the tragedy, but also sketches in brief the base 
qualities and villainous designs of the man who is to guide its 
action. But in no other drama has Shakespeare equalled in 
poetic grandeur the opening scene of Hamlet. In dreary 
watch beneath a wintry sky of twinkling stars, the lone sen- 
tinel, benumbed by the biting air of January, paces to and 
fro in the dead of night along the dark parapets of the castle 
of Elsinore. A sense of dread mystery and a fear of the reap- 
pearance of the ghost, blight his spirits and oppress him with 
heart-sickness and a melancholy loneliness. He pauses now 
and then in anxious restlessness, either to listen to the dismal 
voice of the sea as it roars against the rocky cliff below, or to 
count the solemn strokes of the weird midnight bell, or again 
in eagerness to catch the first footfall of the sentinel whom 
he expects to relieve him at any moment. The solemn scene 
and the gloomy thoughts and feelings of the sentinels aptly 
prepare the audience for the entrance of the preternatural 
visitor. 

[85] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET acti. 

Because of its unusual and mystifying nature, the pre- 
ternatural always has a strong attraction for the multitude. 
Its influence was strong in the Poet's day, when the masses 
still adhered to the Christian doctrine of the supernatural. 
In modern times, however, the spirit of Materialism and Ra- 
tionalism, arising from the dissolving faith of the Christian 
sects, has rejected, to a great extent, the supernatural for the 
natural. Nevertheless, even Rationalists and Positivists will, 
we shall see, find it difficult to resist the powerful appeal for 
faith in the preternatural, which Shakespeare makes through- 
out the First Act of the tragedy. 

The scene opens with a voice ringing out through the 
silent darkness of the night. It is the challenge of Bernardo. 
He feared lest the obscure form of the approaching sentinel 
were the ghost which he had seen on the previous night. The 
guard in turn startled and seized with fear, challenges Ber- 
nardo to stand and give the watch-word. Their conversation 
naturally turns upon the apparition, and Bernardo, fearing 
to meet the ghost in his solitary beat, urges the departing 
Francisco to hasten the arrival of Marcellus and Horatio. 

As the ghost is the prime element on which the tragedy 
depends, the Poet insists on bringing out its objective reality. 
He, therefore, labors to present to our senses such evidence as 
will convince a sane mind that the apparition is not imagin- 
ary or subjective, but a true and actually objective ghost. 
Hence, two soldiers, sturdy, courageous, and little given to 
imagination or to dreaming, encounter it together. Both, 
while on duty as sentinels, see "the dreaded sight" on two 
successive nights. They narrate their experience to Horatio, 
but find him utterly incredulous. In consequence, they chal- 
lenge him to join them that very night and to verify for him- 
self the truth of their story. After the midnight hour when all 
three are on the watch together, Horatio still professes incre- 
dulity, and declines to credit their reiterated story. A scholar- 

[86] 



scene i. A STRANGE VISITOR 

ly man, he is naturally skeptical concerning ghosts; he knows 
they prove too often but dreamy phaDtoms, which, even when 
evidently real, are explained away by natural causes. He 
knows, moreover, that persons of overwrought nerves or of 
an hysterical temperament are sometimes, when highly ex- 
cited, affected in a manner inverse to the natural order ; for 
the image, conjured up by their abnormally disturbed imagi- 
nation, is so vividly pictured forth that they seem to see the 
object corresponding to that image in the same manner as if 
it really existed outside their fancy. Such was their ghost, 
thinks Horatio, an hallucination born of fear and darkness 
and the offspring of their super-excited imagination. He 
does not deny the possibility of the preternatural, but he will 
not, as becomes a prudent man, admit its reality until he has 
the undoubted evidence of his own senses. Against Horatio 's 
scepticism, the sentinels stand firm, and attempt to convince 
him of his error. Bernardo now under the influence of the 
mysterious awe which surrounds the preternatural, assumes 
unconsciously an elevated and solemn style, as he tells his 
experience of the preceeding nights. 

A STRANGE VISITOR 

Bernardo had scarce begun his narration, when as the 
tower-bell tolled the hour of one, the ghost enters noiselessly 
as twice before in the form of the dead king, and clad in 
armor. All are startled at its presence, and in excitement 
arise, overcome by dread and fear. Impelled by the popular 
belief that a ghost may not speak till spoken to, Bernardo in 
awe urges Horatio in earnest words : ' ' Thou art a scholar : 
speak to it, Horatio." It was commonly believed that a sup- 
ernatural being could not be spoken to with effect save by 
persons of learning. It does not appear, however, why a man 
of learning should possess more power over a ghost or evil 
spirit than an unlearned man. If the reason which some 
assign be that Horatio as a scholar was presumably familiar 

[87] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET acti. 

with the language of the Church, which is used in the exor- 
cism of evil spirits, such a reason is ineffectual, and arises 
from a confusion of ideas. It is true that all the sacraments 
and rites of the Catholic ritual are, by ordination of the 
Church, performed in the Latin tongue ; but it is evident that 
the Latin language, as such, does not confer any power over 
evil spirits; this power is inherent in the rite of exorcism, 
which can be performed solely by a minister who has received 
it from the Church through the sacrament of Holy Orders. 
Horatio, as a layman, did not possess this power, nor, as a 
Catholic, could he think of presuming to usurp it sacrileg- 
iously, and, therefore, the mere use of the Latin tongue would 
give him no more influence over the ghost than would any 
other language. Of this, the officers, as Catholics, were well 
aware, and in consequence, we must suppose that they ap- 
pealed to Horatio for other reasons. 

Bernardo and Marcellus, overcome by feelings of awe 
and dread in presence of the preternatural, were too af- 
frighted to speak to "the dreaded sight," and begged Hora- 
tio to do so. They, moreover, yielded in deference to his 
learning ; for, as a cultured man, he should know better than 
they how to address the ghost in a fitting manner, and so 
perhaps induce him to deliver his message from the grave. But 
Horatio, more affrighted than the officers, who see the ghost 
for the third time, stood pallid, mute, and overawed. It was 
only natural that the wonder and terror which for a time 
unmanned him, should be proportioned to the levity with 
which from obstinate incredulity he had treated the testi- 
mony of Bernardo and Marcellus. Only after further urging 
does he summon courage to address the apparition. In befit- 
ting solemn tones, he conjures and commands it to speak in 
the name of heaven. His words vibrate through the stilly 
night, but bring no answer from the stately spectre, which as 
if offended, turns its back upon them, and silently stalks 
away. Horatio grows bolder as the phantom retires, and 

[881 



scene i. A STRANGE VISITOR 

follows a few paces. With commanding gesture, he charges 
it to tarry and to speak. All in vain; its message is for 
other ears. 

The officers, who had witnessed the trembling of Horatio 
and the pallor of his face, now on recovering from their 
fright, taunt him in triumph with his former incredulity. 
Horatio in manly candor admits his error, confesses himself 
''harrowed with fear and wonder," and before God solemnly 
attests his inability to remain blind in presence of the over- 
powering sensible proof of his own eyes. This change of 
Horatio from a sceptic to a firm believer, is a point which the 
Poet labors to impress upon his audience. He clearly wishes 
the spectator, if sceptical, to be converted like Horatio into a 
firm believer in the reality of the ghost. 

Free from fear, but still under the spell of the preter- 
natural, all in highly excited feelings solemnly converse con- 
cerning the probable mission of the ghostly visitor. Marcel- 
lus, the most inquisitive, seeks the meaning of the unusual 
activity noted on every side. Why these nightly watches? 
Why the impressment of citizens to labor day and night? 
Why the hurried toil and bustle in shipyards and in arsenals ? 
Horatio, whose intimacy with Hamlet gives him better oppor- 
tunities for information, tells them of the whispered reports 
common through the court. In detail, he narrates how the 
elder Hamlet, whose ghost they had just now seen, had been 
challenged by the King of Norway to single combat, on the 
mutual wager that the vanquished was to yield his territory 
to the victor. Hamlet 's father won the prize, and now at his 
death young Fortinbras, inspired by the hope of recovering 
the lost domain, is raising an army against the new King of 
Denmark. This threatened invasion is then the cause of ' ' the 
post-haste and romage in the land." 

To Horatio and the officers, who have not the least sus- 
picion of the murder of Hamlet's father, the whispered 
report seems, not only a satisfactory explanation of the war- 

[89] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET aoti. 

like preparation, but also offers a probable reason for the 
visits of the ghost. On the supposition that the dead king 
"was and is the question of these wars," Bernardo sees a fit- 
tingness in his appearance on their nightly watch before the 
castle, clad as of old in the panoply of war. Horatio fears, 
however, and conjectures that the spirit of the warrior-king 
returns, a harbinger of evil, and the thought recalls the pro- 
digies which in pagan Rome preceded the assassination of 
Julius Caesar. In the description of these omens, the Poet 
probably borrows from Lucan's Pharsalia. It mentions the 
eclipse, the comet, and flaming heavens, and ghosts walking 
the streets of Rome. There is also a marked allusion to 
Sacred Scripture in the reference to doomsday or the final 
day of general judgment. On that dread day, when the Son 
of Man shall come in glory to judge mankind, it is prophesied 
that ' ' The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give 
her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven." 1 And again, 
in the Apocalypse, 2 "The sun became black as sackcloth of 
hair, and the whole moon became as blood." 

A GOOD SPIRIT 

Horatio was suddenly interrupted in his speech by the 
entrance of the ghost. Its reappearance at the very moment 
that he was speaking of some probable disaster to the State, 
lends force to his conjectures. Though not now affected by 
the same overpowering fear, which seized him at the spectre 's 
first appearance, his broken words uttered in bated breath 
show his intense excitement. Staring in awe at the dread- 
inspiring spectre, he exclaims: 

But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again! 

I'll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion! 

If thou hast any sound, or use of voice, (It spreads its arms) 

Speak to me. 

1 "St. Matth." XXIV 29. 2 "Apoc." VI. 12. 

[90] 



scene i. A GOOD SPIRIT 

The words, "I'll cross it," have been strangely misin- 
terpreted by commentators who are unacquainted with Cath- 
olic practices. They imagine the Horatio of the stage to 
utter the words while walking across the path of the 'ghost. 
This action they justify on the supposition that a person 
crossing the path of a spectre subjects himself to its malign 
influence. Such a supposition is, however, without founda- 
tion, and seems invoked simply to explain the supposed ac- 
tion of Horatio. There is nothing to show that such a sense- 
less act could affect Horatio, and stay the progress of an 
immaterial and intangible ghost. The text offers no diffi- 
culty to any one who like Shakespeare is familiar with Cath- 
olic practices. Of all modern tragedians, Fechter alone fol- 
lowed the rational interpretation. His Horatio instead of 
striding across the path of the spectre, suits his action to his 
words, and actually crosses it, that is makes the sign of the 
cross before it, and instantly, as Shakespeare intended, the 
ghost stops, as every purgatorial ghost should. 

To cross has various meanings, one of which according 
to standard authorities, is, "to make the sign of the cross." 
"To cross it" and "to cross oneself" are common expres- 
sions which to every Catholic can mean nothing else than to 
make the sign of the cross upon a thing or upon oneself. In 
this sense Horatio crossed the ghost, and that such was the 
Poet's intention is clear from a parallel instance in the Com- 
edy of Errors. Dromio, when overcome by fear, exclaims: 

' ' 0, for my beads ! I cross me for a sinner, 
This is the fairy land; 0, spite of spites! 
We talk with goblins, owls, and elvish sprites! 
If we obey them not, this will ensue, 
They'll suck our breath, or pinch us black and blue. (II. 2.) 

Horatio and Dromio are both affrighted; the one at a 
ghost, and the other at goblins and sprites. Both use the 
same word cross, the one crossing himself and the other the 
ghost as a protection against evil. 

[91] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act i. 

To an unthinking mind, Horatio 's act might seem super- 
stitious. There are indeed many superstitions current among 
the un-Christian masses, which irrationally attribute a pre- 
ternatural efficacy to some talisman or charm; but such is 
not the Christian's faith in the sign of the cross; his confi- 
dence is based on a real potency derived from the Son of 
God. By the cross He conquered sin and Satan, and in con- 
sequence, it has become in the Christian world the honored 
sign of salvation, and like a monarch's sceptre, the univer- 
sally recognized symbol of the Savior's divine power. Hence 
the Church prescribes its use in all her sacraments and cere- 
monies, as well as for the exorcism of evil spirits. Catholics 
are accustomed to cross themselves, not only in their devo- 
tions, but also in temptation and peril; and if suddenly af- 
frighted, as was Horatio, they like him invoke the Savior's 
power by crossing themselves or the object that excites their 
fear. 

The action of the tragedy occurs in the early part of the 
eleventh century, and all the characters exhibit themselves 
as either bad, or indifferent, or good Catholics. Of the latter 
kind are Hamlet and Horatio. Both terrified in presence of 
of the same ghost invoke the aid of heaven, the one exclaim- 
ing, "Angels and ministers of grace defend us," the other, 
relying upon the supernatural power of the cross, feels no 
fear, even though the ghost should attempt to blast him. 
He knows that the cross is a sacred sign loved by angels and 
hated by demons, who tremble and flee before it. If the ghost 
be a good spirit, it will respect the symbol; if it be evil, it 
will quickly vanish. His Christian confidence is rewarded; 
the ghost neither vanishes nor manifests disturbance, but 
standing still, expresses its recognition of the sign of 
Horatio by extending its arms in the form of a cross. Such 
is Shakespeare's direction as noted in his own acting copy of 
1604, which is commonly known as the Second Quarto. 

[92] 



scene i. A TRIPLE APPEAL 



A TRIPLE APPEAL 



Horatio instantly concludes that it is a good spirit, and 
feels encouraged to address it further with the hope of dis- 
covering the purpose for which it " revisits the glimpses of 
the moon. ' ' His words prompted by Christian faith embrace 
a threefold question. The first, which concerns the condition 
of the disembodied spirit, can have reference neither to a soul 
in bliss nor to one in perdition ; the former is beyond all suf- 
fering, and the latter can have no easement. His question, 
therefore, can only relate to a soul in the state of unrest or 
purgation. His words are, however, unintelligible to a reader 
that is not illumined by Christian faith. They presuppose : 
first, that the spiritual kingdom of the Son of God compre- 
hends all the faithful united with Him in heaven, and on 
earth, and in the spirit world of purgation ; second, that the 
just on earth, can by virtue of inter-communion succor the 
souls of those faithful departed who are still undergoing 
purification; and third, that these souls no longer capable 
of meriting for themselves, earnestly desire their friends on 
earth to shorten the term of their imprisonment by vicarious 
good works: these Christian truths are necessarily implied 
in the question which Horatio addresses to the ghost. Know- 
ing Hamlet's father well in life, he is sure that the spectre 
before him is in his exact form, features, and attire. He is 
also aware of the circumstance of which the ghost himself 
later on bitterly complains: that he was cut off without the 
salutary sacraments of the dying, and ushered into eternity 
"with all his imperfections on his head." This fact together 
with his strange haunting visits, seem to Horatio sufficient 
reasons for supposing him to be a purgatorial spirit. Hence, 
inspired by this Christian faith he feels a sincere commisera- 
tion for the poor ghost, and seeks anxiously to learn if he can 
do any good work to ease his sufferings : 

[93] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act i. 

' ' Speak to me : 
If there be any good thing to be done, 
That may to thee do ease and grace to me, 
Speak to me." 

Horatio 's failure by earnest pleading to induce the ghost 
to reveal the secret purpose of his mission, leaves him sur- 
prised and overawed at the solemn, chilling stare of the silent 
spectre. He proceeds, nevertheless, with hope and un- 
daunted courage to address it again. His second question 
arises from a strange coincidence : the dead king had reap- 
peared in the accoutrements of battle at the very time when 
Horatio and the sentinels were conversing on the cause of the 
impending war. The entrance of the ghost thus attired and 
at such a moment naturally suggested the thought that per- 
haps he had some preternatural information regarding Den- 
mark's fate. On this supposition, Horatio appeals to the 
former patriotism of the late monarch, and urges hm to dis- 
close his prophetic knowledge for the welfare of his country : 



to me: 

If thou art privy to thy country's fate, 
Which happily foreknowing may avoid, 
0, speak!" 

Again, when the solemn, silent ghost gives no response 
by word or sign, Horatio attempts a third time to discover 
the secret of his visitings. If it be, as it seems, a purgatorial 
ghost, its presence may be due to the desire of having some 
act of justice done, which it neglected to perform in its life 
on earth. Horatio is aware of the popular belief that the soul 
of a man who dies in possession of ill-gotten treasure, which 
he has concealed in secret places, can find no rest until he 
has made restitution. Souls in such cases are known to have 
returned to earth in the interests of justice. That perhaps is 
what troubles the ghost before him. Cut off by sudden death, 
the late king had no opportunity of carrying out his good 
intention of righting wrongs he may have committed. Ho- 

[94] 



scene i. THE HALLOWED SEASON 

ratio on this probable supposition feelingly appeals to the 
spectre with the promise of performing anything it may 
desire in the cause of justice : 

" Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life 
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth, 
For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death, (the 

cock crows) 
Speak of it ; stay, and speak ! ' ' 

Futile were the appeals of Horatio. The sight of the 
kingly ghost turning his back in silence as if offended, and 
solemnly walking away, rouses Horatio and the officers to 
such a degree of excitement that, all forgetful of the spiritual 
nature of the ghost, they wildly strike at him, and attempt 
to stay him by violence. When, however, the spectre had 
vanished, they regain their senses, and Marcellus, impressed 
by the ghost's majestic bearing, is the first to express regret 
at their folly : no material weapon can touch a ghost, since 
it is by nature intangible and invulnerable. 

THE HALLOWED SEASON 

Their fears are allayed with the disappearance of the 
ghost ; but the intense excitement, which was aroused by the 
presence of the preternatural, is now succeeded by a high 
exaltation of mind. It leads them to picture their thoughts 
and sentiments of the supernatural in fine poetic phrases. 
Bernardo's statement that the spectre was about to speak 
when the cock crowed, is confirmed by Horatio, who in proof 
of it invokes a common belief that all spirits wandering over 
earth and sea hasten to their confines at the crowing of the 
cock at dawn of day. This popular belief, Horatio holds to 
be approved as true by what they themselves have now seen. 

"No Addison," says Coleridge, "could be more careful 
to be poetical in diction than Shakespeare when elevating a 
thing almost mean by familiarity. ' ' In the pagan world, the 
cock, as the herald of the morn, was dedicated to the sun- 

[95] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET acti. 

god, Apollo. His crowing was to the Roman a presage of 
victory. The Fathers of the early and medieval Church 
homilized on his chanting, and clothed him with a symbol- 
ism, whose artistic expression is found in the catacombs and 
in mural paintings, as well as in the weather-vanes of ancient 
spires and belfries. The Christian poets of the same period 
made him emblematic and prophetic, and sang his praises in 
verses that blend the mystical and the literal. 

The words of Horatio are but the reflex of thoughts 
found in the verses of Prudentius (348-405), whom Bentley 
calls the Christian Horace. Behind the obvious literary sense 
of his poem, Ad Galli Cantum, the Christian, whose mind is 
saturated with symbolic lore, readily surmises the mystical, 
and associates the cock-crow with the approach of "light, 
safety, and divinity. ' ' The night is sin, the day is grace, and 
Christ is the Light of day, which invades the realms of the 
spirits of darkness : 

' ' Invisa nam vicinitas 
Lucis, salutis, numinis 
Rupto tenebrarum situ, 
Noctis fugat satellites. ' ' 

"Ferunt Vagantes daemones, 
Laetos tenebris noctium, 
Gallo canente exterritos 
Sparsim timere et cedere." 3 

St. Ambrose (340-397), the father of Latin Hymnody, 
like Prudentius, expresses the same thought as Horatio and 
under a similar figure. In his poem, Aeterne Berum Condi- 

3 For the near coming, though unseen, 
Of light, salvation, Deity, 
Dispels the darkness that hath been 
And makes its hideous minions flee. 

Thay say the roving demon-flock 
That joyful sports in shades of night, 
Starts at the crowing of the cock 
And scatters far in sudden fright. 

[96] 



scene i. THE HALLOWED SEASON 

tor, the winged messenger of day struts in more stately guise, 
as the herald whose "lofty shrill-sounding voice" summons 
the Light into the lists to dispute with the Black Prince in 
warlike debate : 

"Praeco diei jam sonat, 
Noctis prof undae pervigil ; 
Nocturna lux viantibus, 
A nocte noctem segrega^." 

"Hoc excitatus Lucifer 
Solvit polum caligine; 
Hoc omnis erronum cohors 
Viam nocendi deserit." 4 

Again in a mystical sense, the clarion call of chanticleer 
announces the Light of the world, who brings hope and 
spiritual strength, turns aside the sword of Satan, and re- 
news confidence of pardon in the sinner : 

"Gallo canente spes redit, 
Aegris salus refunditur, 
Mucro latronis conditur, 
Lapsis fides revertitur." 5 

They were now near the close of Christmas-tide and the 
words of Horatio suggested to Marcellus another belief cur- 
rent among Christian folk. "Some say," he affirms, that at 

4 Behold ! the Herald of the Day — 
Who as a lamp when light is gone, 
Doth watches of the night display — 
Now wakes the splendors of the dawn. 

And as he sings, the morning star 
Dissolves the darkness of the sky: 
The motley crews of night afar 
From wonted paths of evil fly. 

5 The clarion call of chanticleer 
Unto the sick brings health again; 
The robber's sword is sheathed in fear; 
And trust returns to fallen man. 

Vid. "American Eccles. Review", Vol. XV, "Aeterne Rerum Conditor", by 
H. T. Henry. 

[97] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act i. 

the season of the Savior's birth, 6 when "the bird of dawning 
singeth" the changing watches of the night, evil spirits are 
curtailed in their powers, and maynot enter onr upper air, 
nor seek in witches' forms to harm any mortal of the human 
race. The reason, he assigns, is characteristically Christian : 
the season is so holy and so full of divine grace. The belief, 
no doubt, arose from the fact that, when our Savior was born 
at midnight about the time of the first cock-crow, angels 
sung the first Christmas carol to the Shepherds on the hills of 
Bethlehem. As a Christian, Marcellus would naturally be- 
lieve that, when the Heavenly Host descended to sing the 
birth of the Light of the world, the spirits of evil and of dark- 
ness would fly away in terror and dismay. 

Horatio in reply professes to accept the popular belief 
with certain limitations. Of him a German critic 7 writes: 
"Horatio believes the traditions of Christian superstitions 
only in part, and according to his tone, not at all. ' ' This last 
thought is unwarranted by the text, as well as by " its tone, ' ' 
which is clearly not Shakespeare's but rather the critic's 
own. Gervinus, as a Rationalist was necessarily hostile to 
Christianity, as he knew it in its Protestant form, and reject- 
ing it for Rationalism, he also rejected the real Christianity 
of the ages, of which he had not even an elementary knowl- 
edge. His dogmatic and irreligious tenets had, moreover, so 
dimmed his mental vision as to make all things Christian ap- 
pear as a mass of superstition. Hence, unable, in the present 
instance, to comprehend the Christian sentiments of Horatio 
and Marcellus, he fails to distinguish between the real and 
mystical sense, as well as between folk-lore and Christian 

6 "The holiness of Advent is such as to cause cocks to crow all night long." 

(Trench's Commentary, p. 47). These words, which are not in accord with 
the text, clearly arise from a confusion of ideas. Advent like Lent is, not 
a joyous, but a penitential season in preparation for the great festival 
of Christmas. It closes when on the eve of Dec. 25th, the holy season, 
known, as Christmas-tide, begins, and of this season Marcellus speaks. 

7 Gervinus: "Shakespeare's Commentaries", p. 562. 

[98] 



scene r. THE HALLOWED SEASON 

tradition. The latter is not necessarily one with the former. 
A popular belief is identified with Christian tradition only 
when it is a truth which the Church teaches as a matter of 
Catholic Faith. A man like Horatio was, therefore, free to 
accept or to reject in part the words of Marcellus without 
being thereby less of a Christian. 

A Rationalist, while grasping the literary sense of the 
text, is naturally blind to its mystical meaning. To him 
there is no Savior born ; to him angelic hosts bring no heav- 
enly greetings; to him the birth-day of the Lord is neither 
"hallowed nor full of grace." It is, however, otherwise with 
Christians: to them, because of "good will," angels bring 
"glad tidings;" to them is born a Savior; to them comes 
"the Light of the world," who shall shatter by His power 
divine the Satanic realm of darkness, and restore to all of 
good will their lost liberty and inheritance. It is then in 
this mystical sense that the Christian scholar accepts the 
words of Marcellus. 

The scene closes as the dawn of day is fast approaching. 
Horatio exhorts his companions to go with him to "young 
Hamlet;" it is their duty to inform him of the strange event. 
His father's ghost, so dumb to them, will surely speak to 
him. Thus the audience roused to great expectations, is 
eager for the entrance of the chief character, who alone can 
unseal the lips of the mysterious visitor. 



[99] 



SCENE SECOND 

A PUBLIC AUDIENCE 

At the close of the first scene the spectator, left in highly 
excited mood and aroused to curiosity concerning the secret 
of the ghostly visitor, is given relief in the second. This not 
only introduces him to the chief characters, but also prepares 
him for a perfect understanding of the near preternatural 
revelations. The King and Queen, enthroned in full state 
with numerous attendants, hold the first public reception 
since their recent marriage. Though we are introduced to 
Claudius, the brother of Hamlet's father, and to the Queen, 
who a few weeks after her husband's death had married her 
brother-in-law, we are, like the citizens of Denmark, left in 
ignorance of Gertrude's guilt, and of the King's crimes of 
seduction and murder. Foremost among the attendants is 
Polonius, the old prime-minister of state. In fear of Hamlet's 
lasting aversion, he had adroitly turned to his own interest 
the threatened war of Norway by a successful intrigue to 
set aside the rights of the crown prince in favor of an uncle, 
whom he deemed more subject to his diplomatic skill. There 
is also the young courtier, Laertes, a superficial character as 
opposite to Hamlet, as pole is to pole. Present in public 
court, but clad in mourning, and holding aloof in sullen 
silence from the festive throng, is seen for the first time the 
hero of the tragedy. The spectator is to see his grand charac- 
ter portrayed in the progress of the drama, as in a scroll 
unrolled before his eyes. 

At this public reception Claudius bears himself with 
royal dignity, and in his speech discloses prudence, diplom- 
acy, and consciousness of responsibility. The speech com- 

[100] 



scene ii. A PUBLIC AUDIENCE 

prises two distinct parts. The first, formal and artificial, is 
couched in highly colored and affected language, which 
clearly reveals the secret strain under which the murderer 
labors. His studied words and phrases, scarcely conceal his 
hypocrisy and the emptiness of his assumed grief. His 
public boast that a month after his dear brother's death, 
he yet keeps his memory green, is full of irony. He feels that 
his shameful haste in marrying the wife of his brother, 
while the whole state wore ' ' one brow of woe, ' ' has not met 
with popular approval, hence, he pleads in excuse that dis- 
cretion had urged him, notwithstanding his doleful feel- 
ings, to take his " sometime sister" for his queen. His 
hasty wedding, it is true, had given mirth to the funeral and 
a dirge to the marriage, but with tearful eyes he had entered 
upon it for the interests of the realm, and was impelled 
thereto by wise councillors of state, whose words of wis- 
dom and prudence forbade him to resist. He closes the 
first part of his speech with thanks to all for their favor. 

The second part presents a remarkable contrast both 
in language and in tone. Now free from restraint, he dis- 
courses on affairs of state naturally and with ease, and in a 
dignified, yet straightforward manner. The topic is his pres- 
ent relation with the Norwegian king. Young Fortinbras, 
supposing that the elder Hamlet's death had left Denmark 
in a disordered state, considered the moment opportune for 
demanding the restoration of the territory lost to his father. 
For the enforcement of the claim he was actually gathering 
an army of invasion. In consequence, Claudius informs the 
court that he is presently despatching two ambassadors to 
Norway to protest to the old king against the warlike prep- 
aration of his nephew. 

On the departure of the embassy, the King graciously 
turns his attention to Laertes. His father as a willing tool 

[101] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act i. 

had been the prime mover in the plot which to the exclusion 
of Hamlet, had secured the crown for Claudius. In recogni- 
tion of this service, the King in the presence of the father, 
protests his heart-felt beneficence for the son, and in proof 
thereof assures Laertes of his inability to refuse any 
favor he may ask. Another motive for the King's expression 
of gratitude, is perhaps the fact that considering his hold on 
the throne as yet uncertain, he desires to win the good will of 
the young courtier, who, as Hamlet 's friend, might naturally 
prefer the Prince's succession to the crown. 

Laertes on leaving Paris had as yet no information con- 
cerning the election of Claudius to the throne, and returned 
solely to attend the funeral of Hamlet 's father. In the First 
Quarto he givs the King the true reason of his home-coming, 
but in the revised version, Shakespeare causes him to conceal 
it under a glib lie, uttered with the ease of a polished court- 
ier. This was more in harmony with the character of the 
young noblemen, as drawn throughout the drama. The King, 
before granting the request of Laertes, turns in deference to 
Polonius, and learns that the son had by importunate and 
laborsome petitions conquered the strong resistance of his 
indulgent old father. Parisian life had for Laertes an irres- 
istible attraction. Frivolous of character and addicted to 
an empty life of pleasure and amusement, he found his so- 
journ in the gay capital had made the rude climate of his 
native land uncongenial, and the simple customs of his people 
utterly distasteful. Like many a poor patriot, he preferred 
expatriation. 

MY COUSIN AND MY SON 

■ 

With the affairs of state despatched, the King turns his 
attention to the Prince who has been standing aloof in deep 
despondency. His father's sudden death had called him 

[102] 



scene ii. MY COUSIN AND MY SON 

home from a calm life at the school at Wittenberg, where 
indulging his tastes as a scholar, he also skilled himself in 
bodily exercises, and attained eminence in all that befitted 
his age and condition. The gloom which clouds his mind, 
now agitated by painful images, is reflected in his melan- 
choly mien and reproachful bearing towards the royal pair. 
His father's death he can bear with Christian resignation; 
but the ingratitude of his mother and her faithlessness to 
the fond memory of his father, so openly manifested by the 
base impropriety of rushing into a new alliance, and, what 
is more disgraceful still, into an unholy and incestuous mar- 
riage, rack his heart with grief and afflict his soul, which is 
keenly sensitive to moral beauty and turpitude. 

The King had noticed Hamlet's gloomy looks and re- 
proachful bearing, and seeks to rouse him from his melan- 
choly. Though his secret crime prompts him to suspect 
that his nephew's sullen sadness arose from animosity to- 
wards himself, he concealed his suspicion, and addressed him 
affably in words of paternal affection ; but the Prince, scarce- 
ly glancing at his uncle, interrupts him by the withering re- 
mark: "A little more than kin and less than kind." His 
words, presumably aside, show that he pierces the King's 
masked hypocrisy and mock tenderness. He is a "little more 
than kin, ' ' because of his double relation of nephew and son 
to Claudius ; ' ' and less than kind, ' ' because this new relation 
springs from an incestuous marriage, and is therefore unnat- 
ural and contrary to humankind. He is furthermore "too 
much in the sun" in the sunshine of his royal favor to be 
gloomy. "Being in the sun" was an old saying applied to 
a person ostracized from home, kindred, and social life. 
Hamlet perceived its application to himself ; for after the loss 
of his father, the disgrace of his mother, and the circum- 
vention of his rights to the crown, he felt that he was nothing 

[103] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET acti. 

more than a shadow walking amid the court, where instead 
of being enveloped in the "clouds" of sorrow over the loss 
of his fondly loved father, he was in the midst of nuptial 
festivities and carousings. 

The King, nonplussed by Hamlet's sarcastic words, 
yields to the Queen. She in turn exhorts her son to banish 
his sullen mood, and to show friendship for the King : and 
thus with little prudence and refinement of feeling she be- 
trays the suspicion which Claudius had so artfully con- 
cealed. She next pleads with him to cease mourning for his 
father. To die is after all a fixed common law by which all 
mortals must pass through the gates of death from time to 
eternity. 

"One writes, that 'other friends remain,' 
That 'loss is common to the race' — 
And common is the common-place, 
And vacant chaff well meant for grain. 

"That loss is common would not make 
My own less bitter, rather more: 
Too common! Never morning wore 
To evening but some heart did break. ' ' 

(Tennyson, In Mem. VI.) 

True, * ' all that live must die, ' ' yet death is not the less 
afflicting. If it is common for all to die, it is also common 
for those nearest the departed loved one to mourn his loss. 
But the Queen by her argument implied that she felt the loss 
of her former husband no more than that of other mortals, 
and therefore, by her uncommon and unnatural feeling, and 
still more by her shameless avowal of it, she so shocked and 
wounded her son's sensitive soul, as to extort a reply, which 
with flashing scorn, shattered her platitudes. Her words, 
however, had deeply wounded her son ; for they forced upon 
him the unwelcome truth, that within a month she had really 

[104] 



scene ii. MY COUSIN AND MY SON 

ceased to mourn his father, and would even banish his own 
fond memory of him, and blast the love that glowed in his 
filial heart. 

The Queen 's unfortunate use of the term ' ' seems ' ' shows, 
what the Poet more than once reveals, that the mother does 
not understand the character and disposition of her son. The 
notion that his mourning is mere seeming and conventional 
is galling to the truth-loving Hamlet, and merits the tart and 
passionate rebuke. "Seems, Madam! nay, it is; I know not 
seems." In a graphic picture he portrays the empty conven- 
tionalities of mourning in their varied forms and actions, 
such as a man might play, when clothed in the "trappings 
and the suits of woe ! ■ ' In fine, dexterously insinuating that 
the mourning of Gertrude and Claudius is only a pretense, a 
poorly masked mockery, he passionately affirms that his 
overpowering grief, far from seeming, is beyond all external 
show and expression. 

The Prince's reproachful words were wormwood to the 
Queen; but their force, after a painful silence, is parried by 
the King. Quick to recognize his consort's lack of prudence 
and tact, he in cunning admits no other cause of his nephew 's 
gloom than his father's loss, and with a better knowledge of 
his character directly appeals to his strongly religious feel- 
ings. Hence we see him, an adept in duplicity, beginning 
by artfully approving Hamlet's mourning as "sweet and 
commendable," and then proceeding to repeat and enlarge 
upon the argument already given by the mother. In a long 
pedantic speech, he sanctimoniously preaches his nephew a les- 
son on resignation to the will of God: Hamlet's "obsequious 
sorrow" is an impious stubborness, a fault against heaven, 
against nature, and even against the dead. This pious 
preachment must have seemed another instance of Satan 
quoting Scripture; for Hamlet felt that his sororw for his 

[105] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act i. 

father so lately deceased, was not incompatible with resigna- 
tion to the will of Divine Providence ; but rather in conform- 
ity with it, since it resulted from the love which the Creator 
Himself implants in the heart of every son. 

Such a man as Claudius, however, could not comprehend 
the varied causes which heightened Hamlets' grief; hence 
supposing his sullenness, aloofness, and offensive bearing to 
arise from his disappointment in the crown, he addresses 
him in nattering terms in public court; proclaims him his 
immediate successor ; calls him his son, and assures him of the 
love of a dearest father for a dearest son. These nattering 
words must have been galling to the morally sensitive Prince, 
who, from long acquaintance with his uncle, loathed him as 
a man utterly depraved, and steeped in falsehood and hypo- 
crisy. Hamlet cannot well give voice to his scornful feelings, 
but with a surprising self-command, he expresses his disdain 
for the proffered loving fatherhood thus pressed upon him, 
by ignoring, in rebukeful silence, the offensive words of the 
king. 

Claudius, misjudging the cause of Hamlet's silence, 
imagines that he has gained him over, and concludes his 
speech by earnestly wishing him not to return to Wittenberg. 
His desire is probably prompted by the feeling that he could 
not trust Hamlet out of sight. The curse of crime which ever 
pursues the criminal, was already at work in Claudius, and 
engendered suspicion against the son of the murdered king ; 
and this suspicion was strengthened by Hamlet's strange 
behavior. In consequence, the King considered it imperative 
to detain him in the realm. If Hamlet suspects the murder of 
his father, and plots to avenge it, he will more readily betray 
it to the watchful eyes of royal spies at home ; if, on the other 
hand, his grief is only natural, his mind must be distracted. 
Amid the bustle and busy life at court, he will have little 

[106] 



scene ii. FRAILTY THY NAME IS WOMAN 

opportunity to ponder and suspect. The King, accordingly, 
veiling his hypocrisy beneath honeyed words of kindness, 
pleads with him to remain at court, and be his cheer and 
comfort, his first courtier and his son. From this moment, 
begins the struggle between the uncle and the nephew; the 
one seeking to discover whether Hamlet has knowledge of 
the crime; the other to unravel the secret of his father's 
mysterious death. When Hamlet in his usual sullen silence 
ignores the King's flattering invitation, the Queen in turn 
pleads with him to stay. In answer to her prayer, he con- 
sents; for in his present mental grief and unrest, he feels 
indisposed to pursue his former course of studies, and again, 
deems it his duty to remain on the scene of action, in order 
to watch developments in the confirmation of his foul sus- 
picions. His resolve brings manifest joy to Claudius and to 
Gertrude ; and the former, relieved of uneasiness of mind, is 
prompted by habitual intemperance to make it the occasion 
of new carousals, which, according to his orders, are to be 
celebrated with roar of cannon. 

FRAILTY, THY NAME IS WOMAN 

Hamlet now alone, and more than ever irritated, reflects 
in impassioned mood upon the situation. His wondrous solil- 
oquy in its vehemence of feeling speaks the supreme tension 
of his mind. In his mental agony, he seems the incarnation 
of a lost soul struggling in impenetrable gloom. His high 
ideals of life and grand moral character make him most 
sensitive to the evils which now blast his being, and change 
his life of happiness into misery and woe. Unaffected, hither- 
to, by the vain and fleeting interests of a humdrum world of 
bustle and of strife, he had created in the peaceful halls of 
study, another world of fancy, all his own, where were real- 
ized his high ideals of moral worth and goodness ; where men 

[107] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act i. 

were noble, refined, and generous; where justice was recog- 
nized and honored both by sovereign and by subjects; and 
where honor and fidelity were the ornaments of domestic 
life. Happy in this ideal world, he had fashioned mankind 
in the mould of a virtuous and renowned father, whom he 
idolized, and womankind in that of a beautiful mother, whom 
he loved with ardent admiration. Rude, therefore, and ter- 
rible was the awakening shock which, shattering his Utopian 
world, brought him face to face with the real world of lust, 
and strife, and ambition, and revealed to him all the vileness 
of humanity. 

In the midst of deep gloom, suspicions haunt his mind, 
and presentiments of evil oppress his heart. Though he has 
no positive knowledge of foul play, yet distressing images 
float before his mind. There is his father's sudden death, so 
strange and mysterious ; there is the known evil character of 
his uncle and his hypocritical grief ; and there is the insensi- 
bility of Gertrude to her husband's loss, and her hurried, 
shameful marriage to his father 's brother : All these combine 
to suggest suspicions of treachery, and these suspicions con- 
jure up dark visions of evil, which, though voiceless and un- 
defined, flit before his prophetic soul in loathsome forms too 
horrible to voice. Goaded on by these suspicions, he deems 
his life at court a hell ; and, without knowing how or why, 
everything about him appears contaminated, and the very 
atmosphere he breathes, seems poisoned by the foul breath of 
lust, and treachery, and crime. Launched alone upon a dark 
mysterious sea, he feels himself drifting, he knows not whith- 
er, his mind torn by conflicts, and his soul crushed in despair 
by an overpowering weight, which seems greater than he can 
bear. In torturing pangs of grief, and a loathsome tedium of 
a life no longer worth the living, he catches amid the dense 

[108] 



scene it FRAILTY THY NAME IS WOMAN 

gloom but one ray of light, and in anguish of mind and heart, 
desires and even calls on death. 

Hitherto unfamiliar with the common walks of life, and 
free from contact with moral evil, he had, in speculative 
turn of mind, been accustomed to idealize human nature, 
and contemplate its nobleness rather than its debasing 
elements. These precisely are now brought home to him 
most strongly in their hideous concrete form. Of his ideal, 
he had truly said: "What a piece of work is man! how 
noble in reason ! how infinite in faculty ! in form and moving 
how express and admirable ! in action how like an angel ! 
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! 
the paragon of animals ! ' ' Like many a philosopher, he had 
mistaken his philosophic dreams for truthful realities; and 
like them, when awakened to the strong sunlight of facts, 
he is painfully surprised to discover them to be but empty 
phantoms. Misfortune having brought him into contact 
with human nature as it is, the contemplation of its de- 
pravity as reflected in his uncle and his mother, shocks his 
refined moral sensibilities, and afflicts him with an over- 
powering grief of mind and heart. 

Man is no longer "the beauty of the world," nor in 
"action like an angel." He realizes from observation that 
man's lower nature too often enslaves the higher; that 
blind and brutal passions of the animal nature war against 
the spiritual and divine-like soul, and drag it down to wal- 
low in the sloughs of vice. Disgusted at the realities before 
him, and oppressed by melancholy and a heart-rending 
grief, he wishes that this too material and sordid body 
might "resolve itself into a dew," and leave the soul in the 
grandeur and nobility of its creation, free to pursue the 
higher life. O, that his immortal soul might sunder ita 
rude bonds, and be free from this degrading earthly tene- 

[109] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET acti. 

ment! If only his immaterial spirit could wing its flight 
from this chrysalis of clay, he might divest himself of the 
appalling tedium of an existence so gross and wearisome. 
' * How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable ' ' are ' ' the uses of 
this world ! ' ' It is at this moment, when the conscious hope- 
lessness of his situation, now aggravated by the deepest 
melancholy, clouds his reason, and makes him feel acutely 
the weariness of life, that the thought of self-destruction 
flits across his mind. 

To wish for death, when immersed in a sea of suffering, 
is common to our nature, and the wish, if dependent upon the 
will of Divine Providence, is devoid of moral evil. But sui- 
cide, or self -slaughter is intrinsically evil, and can not be en- 
tertained and consented to without a grievous moral taint. 
With Hamlet, however, self-murder was only a flitting 
thought, because, strong in the supernatural, he had formed 
his character according to Christian principles, and schooled 
himself to command his naturally strong will, and, therefore, 
the pagan idea of self-destruction found no lodgment in his 
mind. To crush the thought, the memory of the law which 
the Creator has fixed against self-murder was all sufficient. 

"The great King of kings 
Hath in the tables of His law commanded 
That thou shalt do no murder. " (Rich. III. 1. 4.) 

"Against self -slaughter 
There is a prohibition so divine 
That cravens my weak hand." (Cymb. III. 4.) 

To every Christian mind, suicide is a disgraceful act, 
which is due to a want of courage or fortitude to bear the 
ills of life. It is an unmanly shirking of the duties and res- 
ponsibilities of our temporary and probationary existence. It 
is a usurpation of God 's supremacy over life and death, and a 
presumptuous entrance without summons into the spirit 

[110] 



scene ii. FRAILTY THY NAME IS WOMAN 

world. Self-destruction can find no place, save with the irre- 
ligious and unregenerated, who living in the moral darkness 
of paganism, know neither God nor man's grand destiny with 
its future rewards and punishments. Hamlet's wish to die 
under his crushing grief was but natural and even moral, be- 
cause it was a wish to be free from evil, but not by unlawful 
means. This is evident from the fact that with the thought of 
self-destruction came the notion that it is a crime against 
nature 's God, and the thought aroused in his soul an instant 
revulsion, which revealed his strong Christian character. Sup- 
reme as was his suffering, he would consent to nothing 
against the divine law and supremacy of God. 1 

His mind shrouded in gloomy grief, Hamlet turns from 
the thought of self-destruction to the outer world, and con- 
templates its miniature in the life at court, where the un- 
mourned memory of his father is dishonored by festivities 
and carousals. His greatest grief, however, is the conduct of 
his mother. This thought deserves attention, because many 
commentators on this soliloquy, picture "the great deed" of 
revenge as the load which presses so heavily upon Hamlet's 
agonizing soul. Such a cause is not only inadequate, but is 
even unsupported by the text. In this scene, in which the 
Prince stands before us for the first time, merely vague and 
undefined suspicions flit before his mind. As yet he has no 
knowledge of the ghost 's dreadful revelation, nor has he even 
heard of its appearance to his friends; hence "the great deed" 
cannot be the cause of his overpowering mental suffering. 

1 An American School edition of Hamlet in commenting on the words, "O, that 
the Everlasting had not fixed His canon against self -slaughter", informs 
the reader with surprising naivete that "there is no such canon". The 
remark appears the result of crass ignorance of the divine law, a supposi- 
tion scarcely to be entertained, or of a misunderstanding of the same law. 
The divine command, "Thou shalt not kill" — thou shalt not take human 
life — is a universal law without objective limitation, and therefore equally 
forbids the slaughter of oneself as well as of a fellow-being. The law was 
so understood from the beginning, and so Shakespeare's philosopher under- 
stood it, as is clear from his words in the text. 

[in] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET acti. 

Shakespeare, leaves no doubt as to the real cause. After 
the fleeting thought of suicide, Hamlet, in all that follows in 
a long soliloquy, concentrates his thoughts upon a dual sub- 
ject, the one, the hastiness of his mother's marriage and the 
other, its incestuous nature. The Poet assigns this marriage 
as the cause of the grief which drives his melancholy hero to 
the brink of despair. 2 His grief is made more acute, by rea- 
son of the refinement of his nature, of his high ideas of honor, 
and of his more than common love for virtue and hatred of 
vice; in consequence, his mother's disgrace, which he feels 
his own, is magnified in his eyes. In speculative mind he had 
fancied an ideal mother, all according to his own creation, 
and endowing her with every noble quality, had looked upon 
her as the paragon of every womanly virtue and perfection ; 
and for this ideal mother he had intensified and refined his 
ardent filial love. "When, therefore, her disgraceful conduct 
rudely awakens him from his fond dream, and forces upon 
him the surprising disparity between his ideal and its shock- 
ing reality, his whole nature, so sensitively moral and refined, 
is stirred to its very depths by a painful revulsion, which en- 
genders a grief in proportion to his former purified and in- 
tensified affection. 

His grief is deepened by various elements, the first of 
which is the turpitude which he discerns in his mother's 
choice of a man like Claudius. Weighed in the balance with 
his father, he is "a king of shreds and patches." As Ham- 
let 's love for virtue was the measure of his hatred of vice, so 
the same moral principles which led him to admire the virtu - 

2 Professor Trench strangely affirms : ' 'Hamlet is but little concerned about 
this grave issue (the incestuous marriage) ; re-marriage, and at an early- 
date appearing to him so serious as to render it unnecessary to dwell upon 
the point that the marriage is within prohibited degrees". "Shakespeare's 
Hamlet, A New Commentary". — The assertion is refuted by the text 
wherein Hamlet expressly says: "married with 'my uncle, my father's 
brother' ", and in the fifth line following, he calls it an "incestuous" 
marriage. 

[112] 



scene ii. FRAILTY THY NAME IS WOMAN 

ous character of his sire, also inspired him to despise a man so 
opposite as Claudius. In comparison, his father seemed an 
Apollo and Claudius a hybrid, a human satyr grossly mould- 
ed with low instincts and depraved tastes. Another element 
of Hamlet 's grief is the fickleness of his mother, and from it 
he reasons to the frailty of womankind. He ponders how his 
light-minded mother once ardently loved his virtuous father, 
yet, within ' ' a little month, ' ' not only foregoes all customary 
mourning, and feels no grief, but even shamelessly rushes 
into a new alliance with infatuate haste. Her ingratitude, 
which seems too gross even for ' ' a beast that wants discourse 
of reason, ' ' adds another pang to his already aching heart. 
But the greatest element of his grief was the incestuous nat- 
ure of the marriage. ' ' This aspect of the matter, ' ' says Prof- 
essor Bradley, "leaves us comparatively unaffected, but 
Shakespeare evidently means it to be of importance. The 
ghost speaks of it twice, and Hamlet thrice (once in his last 
furious words to the King)." This remark is certainly true 
of the adherents of many modern religions, who are included 
in the us of Professor Bradley. It recalls the fact that the 
sects, when cut off from the olden Church and left to shift 
for themselves, inevitably drifted from the old to novel re- 
ligious doctrines. Hamlets' view was Shakespeare's as well 
as Christendom's for fifteen centuries, and remains to-day the 
view of three hundred million Catholics. The same was the 
view of the State Church of England until changed by a very 
recent act of Parliament. If the incestuous union brought dis- 
grace upon his mother, it also filled him with a burning sense 
of shame. It exhibited an astounding moral callousness and 
a coarse sensuality that stifled the voice of conscience, and 
contemned the sacred laws of the Christian religion which 
she professed. As yet he knows nothing of her marital 
infidelity to his father, but he does know that one who is 

[113] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET acti. 

false to her conscience, to religion, and to God, forfeits the 
confidence of her fellowmen; and he further feels assured 
that an irreligious woman is an unvirtuous woman; and if 
such be his mother, what is woman worth? In bewilder- 
ment, he is filled with horror and despair. Turning from 
his cherished, but shattered idol on the one hand to the 
painful reality on the other, he perceives in sorrow, that 
with the loss of love and respect for his own mother, he 
had also lost faith in humankind. That this incestuous mar- 
riage was ever on his mind and afflicted him most acutely, 
is manifest from his frequent allusion to it throughout the 
drama. In the interview with his mother, he is lashed to 
fury at the sense of her indifference to shameful guilt. He 
lacerates and quickens her hardened conscience, and with 
the view of restoring her good name, urges her to leave 
Claudius, and to " assume a virtue if she have it not." At 
the sound of approaching foot-steps, his habitual filial piety 
commands him to silence further expression of his grief, 
and he closes abruptly with the words : 

"But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue.' ' 

A STRANGE DISCLOSURE 

Horatio with the officers of the watch enters in haste to 
unburden his secret of the apparition, but the Prince, still 
preoccupied with the painful thoughts that afflict his heart, 
fails to recognize him, and to the salutation, "Hail to your 
lordship, ' ' replies with the commonplace, ' ' I am glad to see 
you well." The words, however, break the spell that holds 
his mind captive, and turning to Horatio he greets him with 
a hearty gladsome welcome. Upon his friend professing to be 
his "poor servant ever," he protests, and in his usual prince- 
ly courtesy, affirms that he recognizes him no otherwise than 

[114] 



scene ii. A STRANGE DISCLOSURE 

as a good friend. It is the first; meeting since their return 
from Wittenberg; and, in surprise at his presence, Hamlet 
questions the reason of his school-fellow's home-coming. He 
himself had hastened away at the first news of his father's 
death; but his friend, it seems, followed only some weeks 
later to attend the public funeral, which would be held with 
the usual royal pomp. Horatio in delicacy of feeling fears 
to deepen his friend's evident gloom, and in evasion alleges 
his natural disposition to truancy as the cause of his return. 

' ' I could not, ' ' says Hamlet ' ' allow your enemy to say so, 
nor shall I, your friend, credit your confession. ' ' With greater 
insistence he queries for the third time, "What is your affair 
at Elsinore f ' ' 

"My lord," replies Horatio, "I came to see your father's 
funeral. ' ' 

The admission draws from the Prince the words of rail- 
lery: "To see my father's funeral? Nay, nay, good friend, 
do not mock me. You came, I think to attend my mother's 
wedding. ' ' His splendid eulogium upon his father : 

"He was a man, take him for all in all, 
I shall not look upon his like again." 

offers Horatio a fitting opportunity to introduce the object 
of his visit. "My lordj" he says, "I think I saw the King, 
your father yesternight." 

Hamlet perplexed and in wonderment can but utter the 
impassioned words; "0, for God's love, Horatio, let me hear 
of it." With intense attention and excitement he listens to 
his friend's wondrous story. "Marcellus and Bernardo," 
narrates Horatio, "while on their watch at the dead of night, 
had seen an apparition in form like your father's, which arm- 
ed cap-a-pie marched solemnly in slow and stately pace be- 
fore them. Thrice he passed before their fear-surprised eyes 

[115] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET acti. 

as close as the length of their staff, whilst they, almost melt- 
ing away with fear, were struck dumb with affright. On the 
third night I kept the watch with these gentlemen, and ob- 
served the same ghostly sight. I knew your father well ; and 
the apparition was as like him as are my two hands. Once 
he lifted up his head and seemed about to speak, but at that 
moment the cock, the shrill trumpet of the morn, announced 
the dawning of the day, and instantly the ghostly form van- 
ished into air. We saw his face ; he wore his vizor up. His 
eyes were fixed upon us, and his countenance very pale had 
the look of sorrow rather than of anger. His beard was griz- 
zled or sable-silvered as in life. He stayed as long as one 
might slowly count a hundred. ' ' 

"Would I had been there !" exclaims Hamlet, "I will 
watch to-night ; perchance it will walk again. ' ' The thought 
that his father's troubled spirit walks abroad on the instant 
banishes his melancholy gloom and grief. Unlike Horatio 
and the sentinels he knows no fear. Vaguely divining the 
portentous meaning of his father's spirit in arms nightly 
visiting the watches of the tower, he quickly plans his course 
of action, and shows his strength of will in an unfaltering 
purpose to meet the ghost in person, and address it, though 
hell itself should blast him and bid him hold his peace. En- 
joining upon his three friends strict silence concerning the 
dread sight, he promises to join them at midnight in their 
watch on the ramparts of Elsinore, and till then he bids them 
a gracious farewell. 

Again alone, he dwells in agitated mind on his presenti- 
ments, which, once only vague suspicions, have now assumed 
the proportions of doubt that almost borders on certainty. 
"What does it mean? My father's spirit, tell me why the 
sepulcher hath opened his ponderous and marble jaws, to 
cast thee up again." With difficulty he stills his prophetic 

[116] 



scene ii. A STRANGE DISCLOSURE 

soul in impatient eagerness, till the appointed midnight hour. 
Then he shall discover the truth, certain that since the Al- 
mighty set the curse of Cain upon the brow of every killer 
of his kind, 

"Murder though it have no tongue, will speak 
With most miraculous organ." 



[117] 



SCENE THIRD 

CALUMNIOUS STROKES 

The third scene interrupts the action of the drama by a 
skillful episode, in which the Poet introduces us to several 
important characters. Through them we are made acquaint- 
ed with Hamlet's relation to Ophelia, and, moreover, given 
another glimpse of life at court as reflected in the family of 
Polonius. The characters, all drawn on a vastly lower scale 
than Hamlet's, are superficial and commonplace. There is 
the minister of state, whose mental equipment makes him a 
politician rather than a statesman, and his son, a courtier and 
type of the gilded youth who frequented the royal court in 
the days of Shakespeare. Both appear incredulous, not only 
of Hamlet 's purity and honor, but even mistrust Ophelia her- 
self. Hence, they readily attaint his name and blast her love, 
and thus entangle themselves unto final ruin in the web of 
Hamlet 's fate. 

If the brotherly affection of Laertes, though natural and 
common, shows him at his best in the present scene, the Poet, 
under other and later circumstances, portrays the baseness of 
his character. The Laertes of the modern stage is not always 
the Laertes of the drama. In the tragedy, he seems a light- 
minded, frivolous youth, without noble principles and serious 
purposes. Such a man could not understand the nobility of 
Hamlet's character, so rich in highly intellectual and moral 
attainments; and, therefore, by an error not infrequent to 
humankind, he measures others by his own individual low 
standard. In his lecture to Ophelia, he insists that the 
Prince is trifling with her heart ; that his love, but the first 
glow of the springtide of life, is not serious and will surely 

[118] 



scene in. CALUMNIOUS STROKES 

die with his young years. But Ophelia, who has had ample 
means of knowing Hamlet better than her brother, judges 
differently, and, by an unwillingness to discuss the delicate 
subject, laconically implies her doubts of the correctness of 
his judgment. 

The doubt expressed by Ophelia causes hei brother to 
maintain his position in a lengthy speech,; in which he dis- 
honorably insinuates that if the Prince really do love her, it 
is with an ignoble, an illicit love, since he is not free to marry 
her. His will is not his own, but subject to the powers that 
rule ; and, therefore, not until his words of love are sanction- 
ed by the " voice of Denmark," must she listen to "his 
songs. ' ' Accordingly, he urges her on the plea of honor, to 
be wary : her "safety lies in fear." In the passions of youth 
are blind traitorous impulses which often revolt against rea- 
son and the power of self-restraint. While the words of 
Laertes seem commendable, both because they are prompted 
by affection for his sister, and because the prudence and fear 
which they urge, are needed safeguards for virtue ; they are, 
nevertheless, reprehensible in as far as they express a rash 
judgment of Hamlet's character. It is true that, according 
to an unwritten law, the crown prince could not marry whom 
he would, nor espouse one beneath his princely station, with- 
out the consent of the governing power. But this custom was 
clearly ignored in Hamlet's case. His courtship of Ophelia, 
a lady-in-waiting on the Queen, was no secret at court. Ger- 
trude, who had made her a special favorite, knew well the 
mutual relation of the young lovers, and not only encouraged 
it, but even, as she affirms, looked forward to its consumma- 
tion in lawful marriage. 

That Hamlet's love for Ophelia was sincere and honest, 
is known from the Poet's portrayal of his highly sensitive 
moral nature. Throughout the drama he appears habitually 

[119] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act i. 

enamored of honesty and virtue, and repelled by deceit, vice, 
and everything dishonorable. Ophelia was herself convinced 
that his love was sincere and honorable, as is shown by her 
words to her father; and Hamlet himself gives undoubted 
proofs on numerous occasions, and above all, when, in a later 
public view, he outbraves Laertes in his love for her. 

In the consciousness of her own innocence and in ignor- 
ance of the evils of the world, Ophelia listened patiently to 
her brother's words of caution and of prudence. They seemed 
founded on his own experience, and while partly admiring 
their worldly wisdom, she felt some suspicion of their applica- 
tion to Laertes himself. Accordingly, after the general re- 
mark that she will make his counsel the guardian of her 
heart, she forthwith proceeds to lecture him in turn. She 
knew well her brother 's weaknesses and instability of charac- 
ter. More than once she had listened with deep interest to 
the glowing tales of his gay life in the brilliant southern 
capital. She had drawn her own secret conclusions, and now 
under strong suspicion that his counsels and his cautions were 
more applicable to himself, she naively urges that, while 
pointing out to her "the steep and thorny way to heaven,'' 
he should himself be true to his own preachment, and not, 
"like a puffed and reckless libertine," all heedless of his own 
spiritual weal, "tread the broad primrose path of dalliance," 
"the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire." After listen- 
ing with impatience to his sister's lecture, Laertes disregards 
her words, and uttering a curt reply, which displays a con- 
fidence that is born of self -sufficiency, he hastens to depart. 
At the same moment Polonius enters unexpectedly. The son 
deftly meets with a flattering lie his father's manifest sur- 
prise at his belated presence : he had tarried to take a second 
fond leave of his aged sire, and to beg a second blessing. 

[120] 



scene in. PATERNAL COUNSEL 



PATERNAL COUNSEL 



At their second farewell, Polonius impresses upon his 
son certain precepts for guidance in his life at Paris. The 
aged chancellor, says Caldecott, seems too weak to be the 
author of these precepts ; for they ill accord with the charac- 
ter and intellect imputed to him in the rest of the Play, 
wherein he appears to be what Hamlet calls him, ' ' a tedious 
old fool," — "a foolish prating knave." The same view is 
held by Warburton, who adds that Polonius was pedant 
enough to have met with these precepts in his reading, and 
fool enough to get them by heart, and retail them for his own. 
The moment he is at the end of his lesson, we are regaled 
with a style very different. This opinion seems verified 
by the first edition of the play in 1603, in which the lines 
of Polonius appear in quotation marks, as taken from some 
well known source ; and this source is probably Euphues in 
his advice to Philautus. Euphues is the chief character in 
John Lilly's Euphues or the Anatomy of Wit (1579), and 
Euphues and his England (1581). He is supposed to be an 
Athenian gentleman, distinguished for his elegance and wit ; 
and, in his person, Lilly designed to exhibit the high-flown 
diction and excessive elegance of style as affected by the gal- 
lants of England in the reign of Elizabeth. 

The borrowed counsels of the old courtier may seem at 
first sight the wise and prudent dictates of a Christian father, 
and in fact have been regarded by many as of a very high 
strain of morality ; but if viewed in the bright light of analy- 
sis, they appear in their true and genuine colors, as nothing 
more than the height of worldly wisdom, based upon purely 
selfish motives. They speak, it is true, the highest morality 
of Polonius — the rule of being wisely selfish — the rule that 
"honesty is the best policy ;" but no truly honest man, wisely 
remarks Hudson, ever acts on that principle. A man who 

[121] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET acti. 

acts on no higher principle than that of being true to himself 
will fail, because to be true to himself, a man must make it a 
matter of conscience to be true to something higher than 
himself. Love of rectitude is the only thing that will serve. 
How low and futile appears the code of Polonius when com- 
pared with the noble, unselfish counsel given by another 
chancellor of Shakespeare : 

"Love thyself last; cherish those hearts that hate thee; 
Corruption wins not more than honesty. 

Be just and fear not; 

Let all the ends thou aimst at, be thy country's, 
Thy God's and truth's." 

It has been observed that nothing shows more clearly the 
shallowness of Polonius, than his address to Laertes. He 
evinces no real parental feeling at the departure of his son, 
but is satisfied with the utterance of a sum of commonplace 
aphorisms, which might "serve for headlines for a copy book 
and be continued ad infinitum. " There is no word of relig- 
ion nor appeal to religious motives, which form the only firm 
base of true morality. There is nothing higher than thoughts 
of personal comforts and good form, — look after yourself 
first. — It pays to be honest. His code of life, Chesterfieldian 
in scope, utilitarian in nature, and devoid of any Christian 
principle of morality, is based purely on selfish interests, and 
might naturally be the dictates of a pagan rather than of a 
Christian father; nay it does not even rise to the ethical 
heights of cultured pagans of olden times. They deemed vir- 
tue to be its own reward, and inculcated the practice of 
natural virtue for virtue's sake. This was the highest code 
of morality, until the advent of Christianity, which superad- 
ded the supernatural element to purely natural virtue. Any 
ethical code constructed on self-interest is a house built on 
shifting sands; for self-interest ever subject to change, and 

[122] 



scene in. MISTRUSTED LOVE 

always diversified in individuals, can form no common and 
permanent basis for moral conduct. Virtue, and right, and 
justice are such, not because they serve personal interests, but 
on the contrary, no matter how much soever they stand op- 
posed to such interests, still virtue is virtue, and right is right, 
and justice is justice. They are universal and unchangeable, 
and upon them is constructed the one true code of morality, 
which must also be, independently of personal interests, un- 
changeable and universal. 

MISTRUSTED LOVE 

Unfortunately for Ophelia, Laertes on departing, remind- 
ed her of his counsel in the presence of her father. His words 
sufficed to rouse the old courtier's prying instinct. Over- 
mastered by curiosity, he insists on knowing the import of his 
son's advice. He approves the judgment of Laertes, and goes 
even further, by condemning her for being too free and 
bounteous of her time with the Prince, and for not under- 
standing what behooves his daughter and her honor. His 
severe arraignment, while chargeable to solicitude, most com- 
mendable in a father, was due more to the low estimate which 
he entertained of Hamlet's honor and his motives. Like 
Laertes he could not imagine that the Prince was truly and 
genuinely in love with Ophelia ; because, not being intimately 
acquainted with him, he knew neither his nobility of charac- 
ter nor his refined moral nature, and, therefore, measured 
him according to his own low standard. 

Learning of the cause of Hamlet's frequent visits, Polon- 
ius in excitement catechises his daughter. His impassioned 
words "extort from her in short sentences, uttered with 
a bashful reluctance, the confession of Hamlet's love for her, 
but not a word of her own love for him. The whole scene is 
managed with inexpressible delicacy; it is one of those in- 

[123] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET aoti. 

stances common in Shakespeare in which we are allowed to 
perceive what is passing in the mind of a person without any 
consciousness on their part. Only Ophelia herself is unaware 
that while she is admitting the extent of Hamlet's courtship, 
she is also betraying how deep an impression it has made, and 
how entire is the love with which it is returned." 3 Her 
father's earnestness had impelled her to speak in self-de- 
fense ; but her attempt to correct his false notions concerning 
the nature of Hamlet 's love, instead of allaying, only irritated 
more the old chancellor, who, always infallible in his judg- 
ments, could neither brook contradiction, nor tolerate any 
hesitating acceptance of his oracles. 

Poor Ophelia, bewildered by his onslaught, knows 
neither what to say nor think. He will teach her : she must 
consider herself an inexperienced girl, and not accept Ham- 
let 's words of love as legal tenders of sterling silver, when 
they are naught but counterfeit; she must look upon his 
"holy vows" as snares to entrap simpletons who have no 
more circumspection than a senseless woodcock. Appealing 
to his own experience, he assures her that love is prodigal 
of vows, which scarce survive their making. She must, 
therefore, not believe the Prince's vows, which are brokers, 
clothed in pious form the better to deceive. In conclusion, he 
forbids her, henceforth, to meet and speak more with the 
Lord Hamlet. Her father's words confirming those of 
Laertes, and blasting even worse the fair name of her lover, 
make him nothing less than a deceiver and seducer. They 
affect Ophelia's heart most painfully; for in her ignorance 
and inexperience she has the greatest confidence in the wis- 
dom of her father and her brother, and, therefore, feels in- 
clined, against her own good judgment, to distrust her lover. 
This disloyalty reveals a weakness of character, which shall 

3 Mrs. Jameson: "Characteristics of Women in Shakespeare". 

[124] 



scene in. MISTRUSTED LOVE 

later lead her into other fatal errors. Without making fur- 
ther defense, Ophelia bows in silence, and with filial respect 
utters the laconic reply, "I shall obey, my lord." Amid con- 
flicting doubts and in painful heart, she accepts the command 
to break off her relations with Hamlet ; in fact, ' ' to lock her- 
self from his resort, to admit no messengers, and receive no 
tokens. ' ' 

In this scene, in which for the first time we are intro- 
duced to the old courtier, the dramatist evidently intends to 
lay the foundation for Hamlet's fixed judgment that he is 
"a foolish prating knave." Notwithstanding his boasted 
keenness of perception and ambition to play the wily diplo- 
mat, Polonius discloses invariably on every occasion his fatal 
weakness of stumbling upon the wrong scent, and of blunder- 
ingly pursuing it with an obstinacy that leads to his own 
final ruin. 



[125] 



SCENE FOURTH 

SOME VICIOUS MOLE OF NATURE 

Our curiosity already highly excited is in fine gratified, 
when we see Hamlet face to face with his father 's spirit. The 
object of the present scene seems to be to familiarize him suf- 
ficiently with the ghost, in order that perceiving its human 
element, he may lose all terror and amazement, and be pre- 
pared to hear with sufficient calm of mind the terrible revela- 
tions which in the following scene shall fall upon his astound- 
ed ears. 

It is the midnight hour. Hamlet is keeping the night- 
watch with Horatio and the sentinels on duty before the fort- 
ified castle of Elsinore. All are awaiting with keenest ex- 
pectancy the appearance of the nightly walking apparition. 
Filled with awe of the preternatural, they feel the oppressive 
silence of the gloom, and seek mutual relief in conversation 
with the hope of easing their mental strain, as well as their 
strange sense of fear and expectation. 4 

But the sudden clang of trumpets at the dead of night 
startles all save Hamlet ; in surprise Horatio asks the cause of 
the alarming noise at that strange hour. The Poet, who more 
than once alludes to the King's vices of gluttony and drunk- 
enness, emphasizes them more than usual in the present scene. 
Claudius and his court are shown engaged in one of their 
frequent midnight drinking frolics, which are usually divers- 

4 Of this circumstance, Coleridge writes: "The unimportant conversation with 
which the scene opens, is a proof of Shakespeare's minute knowledge of 
human nature. It is a well established fact, that on the Drink of any 
serious enterprise or event of moment, men almost invariably endeavor to 
elude the pressure of their own thoughts by turning aside to trivial objects 
and familiar circumstances; thus, this dialogue on the platform begins 
with remarks on the coldness of the air, the time of night, and the strik- 
ing of the clock". 

[126] 



scene iv. A MOLE OF NATURE 

ified with boisterous dance and mirthful song. When the 
King in swaggering reel drinks the health of all, it is accord- 
ing to Danish custom, accompanied by blare of trumpets and 
by beat of drums. Such barbarous customs were most odious 
to the refined Hamlet, and he looked upon their breach as 
more honorable than their observance. These frequent royal 
revels pained him grievously; for he knew from his travels 
abroad, how they caused foreigners to call the Danes drunk- 
ards and to liken them to swine, and so vilify the nation's 
name and honor. 

Laboring under great nervous tension, and eager to sub- 
due his feelings of excitement, Hamlet passes from moralizing 
on the Danish custom of wassailing, to more general reflec- 
tions. His speculative turn of mind naturally leads him from 
the particular to the universal, from the vice of Claudius to 
failings common to human nature ; and in deep philosophy he 
finds a sedative for his impatient and uneasy feelings. As 
with Claudius, so it is with men in general. One defect 
whether natural or acquired, if allowed to grow in strength 
by habit, will at length break down the very guards of rea- 
son, and vitiate in man all that is really good. 

' l One sad losel soils a name for aye, 
However mighty in the olden time; 
Nor all that heralds rake from coffined clay, 
Nor florid prose, nor honeyed lies of rhyme, 
Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime." 

(Childe Harold) 

For confirmation of his argument, Shakespeare borrows from 
Sacred Scripture the metaphor of a corrupting leaven. ' ' Be- 
ware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." 5 "A 
little leaven corrupteth the whole lump." 8 In this sense, St. 
James affirms: ''Whosoever shall keep the whole law, but 

5 "Matth." XVI, 6. 6 "Gal." V, 9. 

[127] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET acti. 

offend in one point is become guilty of all." 7 Hence the Poet 
reasons : let a man be ever so noble in character, be adorned 
with every virtue ; and let that virtue be refined and purified 
by grace, yet if one blemish or evil trait be found among 
them, it will taint the very essence of his goodness, and bring 
him into disrepute in the eyes of his f ellowmen. 

ANGELS AND MINISTERS OF GRACE 

While Hamlet, apparently absorbed in moralizing 
thought, continues his discourse, he is suddenly interrupted 
by the alarming words of Horatio, who chances to catch a 
glimpse of the silently approaching spectre. His surprise is 
equally shared by the spectator ; for as Coleridge remarks : 
' ' by thus entangling the attention of the audience in the nice 
distinctions and parenthetical sentences of this speech, 
Shakespeare takes them completely by surprise at the appear- 
ance of the ghost, which comes upon them in all the sudden- 
ness of its character." The spectre appears in arms, in the 
full panoply of war, just as the corpse of Hamlet's father was 
buried according to Danish custom. This circumstance lends 
greater solemnity to the scene, whose picturesqueness is 
heightened by the silvery moon beaming here and there 
through the openings of the massive battlements. 

The sight of the mysterious spectre fills all with fear and 
amazement. As the solemn ghost silently approaches, Hamlet 
is suddenly overpowered by awe and terror, and, feeling 
himself in the grasp of the preternatural, shudders and stag- 
gers backwards, uttering from fear the first thought that flashes 
on his mind. It expresses a sentiment that is distinctly Chris- 
tian. The force of Hamlet's exclamatory prayer, like other 
indices of his Catholic faith, either is not understood, or is 
silently ignored by certain critics who would make him an 

' II, 10. 

[128] 



scene iv. MINISTERS OF GRACE 

Agnostic, or a Rationalist, or a Positivist, or anything but 
a Christian, and who are wont to seize upon a few obscure 
passages in support of their tenets, all the while remaining 
blind to the clear evidences, multiplied through the drama, 
of his thorough Catholicity. Considering that Hamlet is 
a pure creation of Shakespeare's mind, and that he makes 
him a Christian prince of the eleventh century, it follows that 
in justice to the Poet, we must view his hero through Catholic 
eyes, and judge his words and actions according to Christian 
principles and practises. Such is the fundamental law of 
rational criticism, and any critic who ignores it, must neces- 
sarily misinterpret the Prince, and give us nothing more than 
a distorted view of his character. If the Poet could not prud- 
ently enlarge upon the faith of Hamlet, because he wrote his 
dramas for presentation at a time when not only his audiences 
were anti-Catholic, but also when the government pursued a 
policy of intolerance and persecution, he, nevertheless, from 
fondness for the old religion, did not fail to enrich the trag- 
edy with lustrous gems, which brilliantly reflect the clear sun- 
shine of Catholic belief. 

One of these gems, in the present instance, is Hamlet 'a 
invocation of angels and ministers of grace to defend him. 
In the days of the ''great Reformer" and of "good Queen 
Bess," many treatises were issued and penal laws enacted 
against the good old Catholic belief and practice of invoking 
the aid of angels and of saints, as here exemplified by Ham- 
let. The first few lines of his address to the ghost contain a 
depth of meaning, which none perhaps but a Catholic mind 
can fathom. Besides his belief in the power of angels and of 
saints to hear and help us, he emphatically implies the exis- 
tence of a heaven and a hell, of good spirits who are the min- 
isters of God's favor, and of evil spirits who are bent on 

[129] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET acti. 

man's destruction, and of a divine revelation on which these 
Catholic doctrines are based. Furthermore, his brief and 
hurried prayer is heightened in force, when we consider that 
it was uttered in a moment of overpowering fear and terror, 
which left him no time for reflection. It is a well known fact 
that men, under such circumstances, invariably utter words 
to which by frequent use they have become habituated, and 
which, therefore, without thought come to their lips as it 
were from custom or second nature. This fact reveals how 
deeply religion and its supernatural elements were engraven 
upon the soul of Hamlet and entered into his every day life. 

Hamlet as a Christian knew that evil spirits may at times 
assume various forms, the better to beguile to evil, and, there- 
fore, he doubted whether this spectre-like form of his father 
were really his ghost or a demon. He was further cognizant 
of the popular belief that to accost and speak to a ghost, is 
to invite dire consequences; nevertheless, all regardless 
whether the spectre before him be a " spirit of health or gob- 
lin damned;" whether "he bring grace from heaven or blasts 
from hell, ' ' Hamlet determined to stay the course of his mys- 
terious visitor and to address him in questioning words. His 
resolve in presence of Horatio and the officers, who are quak- 
ing with fear, evinces a wondrous courage and a remarkable 
strength of will. His invocation of angels and ministers of 
grace had halted the walking ghost, which, turning in his 
footsteps, stood facing him. Becognizing now more clearly 
the form and very features of his father, Hamlet speaks to 
him in words, whose grandeur reveals the heated state of his 
mind. 

In the course of an animated address, Hamlet slowly 
draws nearer and nearer, and, fixing his look on the pallid 
face, gazes into the glassy eyes of his father's spectral form. 
For the moment he forgets all fear and awe of the preternat- 

[130] 



scene iv. MINISTERS OF GRACE 

ural. Fond memories which he cherished return with all their 
freshness, as he feels himself again in the presence of his 
idolized father. His heart aglow with filial love and devotion, 
he passionately appeals on bended knee and with outstretch- 
ed hands to the solemn, silent shade to answer him. He calls 
him Hamlet, king, father, and on the last appellation his voice 
falters in lingering loving accents; and then he utters the 
climax, "royal Dane," to him, indeed, the Dane of all Danes 
— the paragon of perfect manhood. In outpouring questions 
of overmastering eagerness and yearning, he seeks the cause 
of his unrest, and fears the confirmation of his own foul sus- 
picions. "Tell me," he pleads, "why thy corpse, which we 
consecrated by sacred rites of burial, has burst its cerements ! 
Why has the sepulchre wherein we laid thee to peaceful rest, 
opened wide its ponderous and marble jaws to give thee up 
again ? Why dost thou, dread corpse, revisit again in com- 
plete armor the glimpses of the moon to make us fear and 
tremble, to mock and laugh at us, poor fools of nature, who 
vainly search to know her mysteries, though they are beyond 
the reach of our souls ? 0, answer me ! — What should we do 
to bring peace to thy burdened, wandering soul ? ' ' 

Hamlet 's anxious filial desire and impassioned pleadings 
extort no response from the mute spectre, save a waving of 
the hand, by which the spirit beckons him to follow apart 
from his companions. Allowed by divine permission to revisit 
earth in the cause of justice, the ghost can speak its secret 
message to no other ears than Hamlet's. It is a purgatorial 
spirit and, therefore, necessarily good ; confirmed in the grace 
and love of God, it can do no wrong. But to destroy a man's 
reputation by revealing his secret crimes to others than those 
whose concern it is to avenge the crime or to right the wrong, 
is an offence forbidden by the moral law of God. Hence to 

[131] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act i. 

Hamlet, who was alone concerned, could the purgatorial 
ghost disclose the crimes of Claudius and the infidelities of 
the Queen. 

I'LL FOLLOW THEE 

Hamlet, who clearly understood the courteous beckon- 
ings of the ghost to be expressive of a desire for a secret con- 
ference, was as eager to learn its secret message as the spectre 
was to deliver it. His unflinching resolve to follow, is indicat- 
ed by word and action, which disclose a wondrous courage 
and a powerful will. All pale and breathless, with eyes glow- 
ing in excitement and intently fixed upon his father's spirit, 
the Prince slowly follows, now pausing, now advancing, until 
his companions from fear bordering on terror rush forward to 
impede his progress. They strive by energetic word and 
action to turn him from his rash resolve ; for, suspecting that 
the phantom is an evil spirit in the guise of Hamlet's father, 
they greatly fear for his safety, should he go where it leads. 
Their words, however, fall heedless on his ears, and wholly 
fearless and undaunted he follows in the footsteps of the still 
beckoning ghost. Why should he fear, even though it be an 
evil spirit ? What harm can it do him? As to his body, he 
does not from weariness of life value it at ' ' a pin 's fee. ' ' As to 
his soul, rational philosophy, as well as his religion assure him 
that it is spiritual and immortal, and, therefore, immune from 
injury by any fell spirit of the nether world. 

Horatio, finding him still insistent on his resolve, appeals 
to the probable evil design of the phantom : it clearly beckons 
him onward towards the dreadful summit of the lofty clin 2 
which overhangs the boisterous ocean. There it may sudden- 
ly assume some frightful shape, and, depriving him of reason, 
cause him to cast himself headlong down into the abyss of 
roaring waters. His words are idle: Hamlet's impatience 

[132] 



scene iv. I'LL FOLLOW THEE 

only waxes stronger at Horatio 's proffered arguments. Still 
undaunted and in excitement growing with resistance, he 
brushes him aside, and follows the spectre, which continues 
to wave him forward. As he advances, Horatio and Marcel- 
lus, who are overpowered by fear, hurriedly throw them- 
selves upon him, to hold him back forcibly from certain death. 
But Hamlet is enraged at their violence, and struggling in 
their grasp throws them off, as if with preternatural strength, 

" Which makes each petty artery in his body 
As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve." 

Then with flashing quickness he draws his gleaming sword 
and swears, by heaven, to make a ghost of the first aggressor. 
Horatio and Marcellus, still agitated by fear, now stand 
back in amazement, and watch Hamlet as with sword ex- 
tended he passes from their sight, pale and panting, his glis- 
tening eye ever fixed upon the beckoning ghost. His disap- 
pearance fills them with uneasiness. They feel their obed- 
ience was a dereliction of duty, since "he waxes desperate 
with imagination." Repentant, they now follow after, Mar- 
cellus the while uttering unconsciously the cause of the 
ghost 's appearance : 

' ' There is something rotten in the state of Denmark. ' ' 

So far, there appears nothing in support of the theory 
which attributes to the Prince cowardice, weakness of will, 
and irresolution. His action is all to the contrary. His 
eagerness to encounter the ghost at dead of night; his bat- 
tling for freedom with naked sword, when his companions 
use violence to stay his progress ; his following alone in dark- 
ness the dubious guidance of the ' ' dread spectre : " all exhibit 
an uncommon courage and energy of will, and these qualities 
shall be revealed to a still higher degree in the next and clos- 
ing scene of the First Act. 

[133] 



SCENE FIFTH 

A PURGATORIAL VISITOR 






We have been gradually prepared for more thrilling ac- 
tion by the coming and the going of the dread-inspiring spec- 
tre. His ghastly form and silent stately tread have impressed 
upon us the presence of an actual ghost, and aroused us to an 
acute expectation, which is met when with sentiments of awe 
we listen to his solemn words, as in hollow sounding and un- 
earthly tones he discloses to the Prince's startled ears the 
well-guarded secret of the grave. Hamlet had followed the 
ghost through the thick darkness, but, on nearing the beet- 
ling cliff, he refused to proceed farther before his spectral 
guide declared himself and the purpose of his visit. As a 
Christian he knew on the authority of Sacred Scripture that 
though the ghost wore his father's form, it might be an evil 
spirit, whose purpose was to lead him to destruction. At his 
challenge the ghost stands, and with sepulchral voice discloses 
that the hour is near at hand, when he must return to pur- 
gatorial flames. 

His words stir Hamlet to pity, but this sentiment is at 
once swallowed up by surprise, as with astonishment he hears 
the word "revenge" fall in hollow tones from the lips of the 
spectre. For reply he can utter but one questioning word of 
amazement and perplexity. That word ' ' revenge ' ' inspires a 
fear that his foul suspicions are indeed verified. All intent, 
he listens to the ghost 's continued narration : once an erring 
mortal, more sinned against than sinning, he is in very truth, 
his father's spirit doomed "to sulphurous and tormenting 
flames, ' ' until the sins done in the flesh ' ' are burnt and purg- 
ed away." 

[134] 



scene v. A PURGATORIAL VISITOR 

The words of the ghostly visitor are in perfect harmony 
with Catholic faith. The fact that his father's ghost was a 
purgatorial spirit, was an unerring proof that he had died 
free from any grievous or mortal offence against the moral 
law of God, and was, therefore, in the state of grace, or the 
friendship of Heaven. But, because of failure in life to atone 
by good works for grievous sins forgiven, or because, tainted 
by lesser offences, which, while not incurring eternal reproba- 
tion, nevertheless, debar him from a Heaven where nothing 
denied can enter, his soul was in a middle state, undergoing 
purification from all stains or disfigurements, so as to become 
fit to dwell in the blissful home of angels in union with a 
God of infinite justice and holiness. This purgatorial spirit, 
revisiting by divine permission ''the glimpses of the moon," 
comes to unburden its soul of the secrecy of an awful crime 
known to Claudius and to God alone. After revealing his 
identity and condition in the world beyond the grave, the 
ghost, as he affirms, would gladly gratify human curiosity, 
would blazon forth the awful mysteries of his prison-house 
in words that would harrow up Hamlet's soul, freeze his 
young blood, make his two eyes, like stars, start from their 
spheres ; but such eternal blazon must not be made to ears 
of flesh and blood. 

On this subject as on others of the same order, Christian 
revelation teaches, not what satisfies our curiosity, but only 
what is necessary for salvation. The Catholic believes these 
truths on their extrinsic evidence, which is the authority of 
the Word of God. In the words of the Apostle : ' ' Faith is the 
evidence of things that appear not," 8 and again, "now we see 
through a glass in a dark manner, but then face to face. Now 
I know in part, but then I shall know even as I am known"" 
The Catholic believes truths of divine revelation, not because 

8 "Hebr." XI, 1. 9 1 "Cor." XIII, 12. 

[135] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET acti. 

of any intrinsic evidence, which forces them upon his intel- 
lect, but by the strength of his will, and solely on the Word 
of God, who, because infinitely wise and holy, can neither 
deceive us nor be Himself deceived. Hence, the Catholic has 
for his belief the highest motives of credibility, and bases it 
upon evidence which, though extrinsic, is unfailing and tran- 
scendent. By reason of this extrinsic evidence, his act of 
faith is free; and because free, it is meritorious; and meri- 
torious because by his faith he offers to God the homage of 
his intellect and will ; and this act of homage is on the divine 
promise salutary for eternal life. Such faith is the beginning 
of salvation. 10 Of this faith the Savior spoke when he said 
to the doubting Thomas: "Because thou hast seen me, Thom- 
as, thou hast believed : blessed are they that have not seen, 
and have believed." 11 In this world our curiosity may be 
rewarded by diligent search after natural truths of this our 
visible creation, but in mortal life we are hopelessly barred 
from the knowledge of supernatural truths of the invisible 
world, save such as a kind Providence has deemed it wise to 
reveal for our salvation. Hence the ghost returning from the 
invisible world of spirits, was not allowed to disclose to Ham- 
let other truths concerning his prison-home, than those that 
are already known to Christians by means of divine revela- 
tion. 

NATURE OF THE "REVENGE" 

Hamlet listened in amazement as the ghost unfolded its 
woeful tale of suffering. His pity, more and more aroused, 
racked his heart with an agony which, at his father's appeal 
to his former fond love, so overpowered his feelings that he 
called on God for assistance. But, when the ghost for the 
first time makes the terrible disclosure of the foul and un- 

10 "Hebr." II, 6. 11 "Jno." XX, 29. 

[136] 






scene v. NATURE OF THE " REVENGE' ' 

natural murder, Hamlet staggers backward, as if stricken by 
some secret power. Standing in vacant stare, mute and pal- 
lid with horror pictured on his face, and, his quivering frame 
swaying to and fro, he can only mutter, ' ' murder ! murder ! ' ' 
The ghost proceeds, however, and his command to avenge the 
crime, at once excites other passions, and, with an energy of 
will that conquers all emotion, Hamlet utters from the depths 
of his soul the passionate cry : 

" Haste me to know >t, that I, with wings as swift 
As meditation or the thoughts of love 
May sweep to my revenge. " 

A recent commentator who adheres to the theory of 
Hamlet's weakness of will, discovers in these lines a proof of 
impotence; for "they convey," he says, "no suggestion of 
speed at all, but the reverse." 12 Other commentators, he 
affirms, have not hitherto found any evidence of Hamlet's 
impotence in the lines. Their critical lapse is indeed no mat- 
ter of surprise, but rather of commendation ; the lines convey 
not the least suggestion of Hamlet's impotence. As yet he 
has heard only the words 'murder' and 'revenge', but not 
the story of his uncle's crime and his mother's infidelity; 
hence his words express nothing more than an eagerness to 
hear of the crime and to fly to its revenge with the celerity 
of thought. As a philosopher versed in the psychology of 
the human mind, he knew that to think is an act of the 
immaterial spiritual faculty of the soul, and that an immat- 
erial thought is in action swifter than the flight of an eagle 

12 "How many readers and writers have quoted these words as evidence of 
Hamlet's good intentions, and how few have found in them evidence of 
his impotence I There are other figures that he might have used : — 'With 
wings as swift as wings of eagle swooping upon his prey.' But the wings 
to which he refers, when striving to express an intention to fly swiftly, 
are the only ones he possesses, are the brooding wings of meditation. As 
to 'the thoughts of love', their ebb and flow takes up time. Hamlet's 
words convey no suggestion of speed at all, but the reverse". W. F. Trench, 
"Shakespeare's Hamlet", p. 73. 

[137] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET acti. 

swooping upon its prey, aye, swifter than a lightning flash. 
This rapidity of thought becomes more accelerated when the 
mind is roused to greater activity by the impetus of passion, 
say of love or of hatred. Hence the philosopher's metaphor 
is most apt, since it exceeds all others in the notion of 
rapidity. 

If the word "revenge," as uttered by the ghost and 
again by Hamlet, seem repugnant to Christian minds, it is 
because the term, once a close synonym of avenge, has ac- 
quired a far different meaning. Revenge is selfish : avenge is 
unselfish. To revenge now signifies to inflict upon another 
some evil through personal anger and resentment: while to 
avenge is to punish a culprit in vindication of law and justice. 
The former is contrary to Christian ethics, but the latter is 
sometimes a bounden duty. The task, therefore, imposed 
upon Hamlet by divine justice in the person of the purgator- 
ial ghost, must not be understood as an illicit, personal, and 
vindictive retaliation of evil for evil ; but a ' ' revenge ' ' which, 
once synonymous with avenge, signifies a righteous retribu- 
tion and vindication of violated law and justice. Milton so 
uses the term: 

"Avenge, Lord thy slaughtered saints whose bones 
Lie scattered on the alpine mountains cold." 

The "revenge" of the ghost, therefore, strictly signifies re- 
tribution in the Scriptural sense : ' l And shall not God avenge 
his own elect?" and again: "Vengeance is mine, saith the 
Lord, I will repay." 

It is repugnant to Christian teaching that a purgatorial 
spirit, confirmed in the grace and friendship of God and puri- 
fying itself for entrance into Heaven, should return to earth 
to contract a new stain by inciting to sinful, personal revenge. 
The words of the ghost are all to the contrary. He comes the 

[138] 



scene v. SECRETS OF THE GRAVE 

messenger of heaven and, as its instrument of retributive 
justice, discloses only what is necessary for the purpose. He 
speaks the dread secret, not to Horatio and the sentinels, nor 
to the Queen, who, though faithless to his love, was innocent 
of his murder. He does not seek to excite Hamlet's hatred 
against his uncle by revealing himself like Banquo with 
bloody countenance all disfigured. He cares more for virtue 
than for vengeance, hence, he cautions his son against taint- 
ing his soul in any attempt to bring Claudius to justice. He 
comes not on a personal mission, but, as king and patriot, to 
save his kingdom and people from the grasp of a monster of 
murder and lechery. He had been, as in the theocracy of old, 
not only the chosen king of the people, but also, by reason of 
the unction of holy chrism, the annointed king of the Lord 
and the guardian of the state in its spiritual and temporal 
welfare. Therefore, the murderous blow of Claudius was at 
once a blow at state and religion, a blow at truth and justice, 
a blow at the moral law, which underlies all political and 
social order. Hence, the ghost comes as a patriot, clad in 
the armor of a warrior-king, to vindicate his own sacred 
rights and those of his son and people, and to unmask and 
bring to justice a foul criminal, whose monstrous outrages 
against the divine and natural law have cried aloud to heaven 
for vengeance. The spectre commends Hamlet's eagerness to 
punish the criminal. If such a crime were not to stir him, 
he would indeed be duller than the shapeless mass of weeds 
which in the infernal regions rises and falls with the tide of 
Lethe's stream, a river which erases all memories of the past 
from the minds of those that drink its waters. 

SECRETS OF THE GRAVE 

His eyes aglow and lips parted, Hamlet in dread sus- 
pense listens with eagerness to the ghost's further revelations. 

[139] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act i. 

He hears how the serpent whose poisoned fangs caused his 
father's death, rankly deceived the public by a fictitious 
account. At this information Hamlet seems seized by some 
sudden malady; dazed, bewildered, and shuddering with 
horror, he presses convulsively his throbbing heart as in 
anguish he mutters, ' ' my prophetic soul ! ' ' 

Visibly struggling with his emotions, he bravely labors 
to regain composure, in order to comprehend the better the 
ghost's further disclosures. But still confused and wildly 
staring, he hears in horror of other crimes of Claudius. To 
him his father's ghost seems again incased in mortal frame 
of flesh and blood, and stirred by human passions as he 
dilates ilpon his loyal love for Gertrude, which "went hand 
in hand even with the vow he made to her in marriage." But 
the Queen being all the while in the mask of virtue, a perfi- 
dious sinner, when most she seemed a saint, allowed a wretch 
of poorest gifts to bewitch her to the dual crime of incest and 
adultery. A virtuous person will not be lured to lewdness 
though it wear the guise of heaven ; but a lustful individual, 
though linked to an angel of the purest radiance, will, to sate 
a shameful passion, even "prey on garbage." As the ghost 
perceives the dawn of day approaching, he hurries on to dis- 
close the manner in which Claudius committed the secret 
murder, and its leading circumstances. 

After a succinct description of the secret crime, the 
ghost bitterly complains, not so much of the murder, as of the 
refined cruelty which deprived him of the sacramental rites 
that are commonly granted to the poorest Christian : he was 
sent to his eternal account, "unhouseled, disappointed, unan- 
eled." The complaint is fittingly couched in "old English" 
terms, which, though now obsolete, were in common use in 
Shakespeare's time, as well as at the period when the Poet 
supposes the elder Hamlet to have lived. The first complaint 

[140] 



scene v. SECRETS OF THE GRAVE 

is that he died "unhouseled," or without receiving the Holy- 
Eucharist. This sacrament, when administered to the dying, 
is commonly called Viaticum, which signifies provision for a 
journey. It is properly so called, since it is a spiritual provi- 
sion for the journey, which the soul of the dying man is about 
to make into eternity. The second complaint is that he died 
in a disappointing state, or condition, that is, not prepared 
or shriven. A worthy reception of the Holy Eucharist, or 
sacrament of the body of Christ requires that a man purify 
himself by a confession of his sins, in which, if truly penitent, 
his transgressions are forgiven by virtue of the power which 
Christ has for this purpose committed to His Church. Both 
sacraments are referred to in the lines of Walter Scott : 

"To die like the houseless dog on yonder common 
Unshriven and unhouseled." 

The third complaint is that he died "unaneled," or with- 
out the sacrament of Extreme Unction. This sacrament of 
the last unction is administered to those only who are in 
danger of death by sickness, and in accordance with the ex- 
press command of St. James, the apostle. 13 The complaint of 
the ghost is well understood by Hamlet ; for, every Catholic, 
if in dangerous illness, is most anxious to receive the last 
sacraments, in order that his soul purified and fortified by 
grace, may appear with firm hope before the supreme trib- 
unal of infinite justice ; nay, even in the case of a bad Cath- 
olic, this anxiety for the sacraments is often most extreme, 
because of the consciousness of the sad condition of his soul. 
A Catholic only can understand the full significance of the 
ghost's complaints. He alone can see how in harmony with 

13 "If any man be sick among you, let him bring in the priests of the Church, 
and let them pray over him, annointing him with oil in the name of the 
Lord, and the prayer of faith shall save the sick man, and the Lord shall 
raise him up, and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him". (St. James, 
V, 14-15). 

[141] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act i. 

Kis religion the soul of Hamlet 's father on returning from his 
purgatorial prison, should bitterly complain of being "sent 
to his account with all his imperfections on his head." His 
acute sufferings made him feel this privation most keenly, as 
is clearly indicated by the closing words of his complaint: 
' ' 0, horrible ! 0, horrible ! most horrible ! ' ' 

The present passage is a remarkable indication of the 
Poet's strength of character; for, by enlarging upon dis- 
tinctly Catholic doctrines, he braved the hostility of a perse- 
cuting government whose new state religion declared purga- 
tory, as well as the sacraments of the dying to be naught but 
"damnable superstitions." 14 

A STRICT INJUNCTION 

The quickening dawn hastens the departure of the ghost. 
His last words are most important and significant; signifi- 
cant, because they indicate his moral character. As a purga- 
torial ghost he will neither do wrong himself, nor counsel his 
son to do so. The revenge must be, not a personal and vin- 
dictive, but a righteous punishment to be measured out ac- 
cording to the laws of God and man. Moreover, the ghost in- 
sists that in the punishment of Claudius, Hamlet must not 

14 It has been the constant teaching of the Church, from the very days of the 
apostles that there exists in the next world, a temporary state of suffering, 
where the souls of the just expiate offenses committed in this life. This 
is clearly seen from inscriptions on the tombs of the early Christians in 
the catacombs, from the writings of the early Fathers, and from the pray- 
ers used in her Divine Service. Sacred Scripture assures us "that God 
will render to every man according to his works". (Matt. XVI, 27). 
If Divine Justice condemn a man, dying in grievous, or mortal sin to 
eternal reprobation, a man with a lesser, or venial sin will not, according 
to right reason, merit the same punishment. There must, therefore, be 
some other place, where the soul tainted only with slight offenses, may 
undergo purification: some will be saved, "yet as by fire". (1 Cor. Ill, 
15). Every sin, no matter how light, deserves punishment either here or 
in the world to come. Sacramental confession washes away the guilt of 
sin, and remits the eternal penalty due to grievous sins, but not the 
temporal punishment, which must be undergone in satisfaction to God's 
justice. The. Church does not define the nature and the duration of the 
punishment of purgatory, nor its situation; but only that there is a place 
of purgation, and that souls suffering there, may be helped by our prayers 
and good works. 

[142] 



scene v. THE REALITY OF THE GHOST 

stain his own soul, nor injure the sinful Queen; for though 
she be a wicked ingrate, she is still his mother, and, accord- 
ingly, he must continue to love and honor her in obedience 
to the divine mandate. The words of the ghost are note- 
worthy, because they speak strongly against those un-Chris- 
tian critics, who insist on blaming Hamlet for not rushing at 
once upon the King, after the disappearance of the ghost, 
and slaying him in a cold-blooded personal revenge. Such 
indeed was the revenge of the original Amleth who, as a 
barbarian, knew no other law, save that of pagan morals. But 
our hero is altogether a pure creation of Shakespeare's ge- 
nius. He has civilized the barbarian, refined him, and ideal- 
ized him, and made him the paragon of a Christian gentle- 
man, whose every act is in harmony with right conscience, 
which in turn is regulated by the inviolable and unchange- 
able moral law of God. 

THE REALITY OF THE GHOST 

At the disappearance of the ghost, we may pause to con- 
sider the strange opinion of Gervinus, an eminent German 
critic, 15 who maintains that the spectre was merely sub- 
jective, nothing more than the creation of Hamlet's heated 
imagination. Such an opinion appears, indeed, remarkable 
in the face of the very strong evidence that Shakespeare 
gives us of the objective reality of the ghost. It is not, how- 
ever, at all surprising to one who knows the peculiar views 
and beliefs of Gervinus. Unlike Shakespeare, he was a pro- 
nounced Rationalist, and, to be consistent with his tenets, was 
perforce obliged at any cost to deny the supernatural, to 
deny the spirit world of angels, whether good or bad, as well 
as the spirituality of the human soul. Hence, he reasons 
a priori; ghosts are impossible, and, therefore, Hamlet's 

15 "Shakespeare Commentaries", page 562. 

[143] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET acti. 

ghost was not real but imaginary. Such reasoning is fatui- 
tous ; it takes for granted the very point to be proved. 

The professor, however, offers in support of his dictum 
another dogmatic assertion, which he deems an all sufficient 
reason : ''Hamlet believes in ghosts and therefore sees them.' , 
Such a reason must seem even to the casual reader not only 
insufficient, but also flimsy. If to believe in ghosts is to see 
them, then ghostly phenomena would in truth be common oc- 
currences : for, there are many millions who believe in ghosts. 
What fact is better known than that many on the death of 
some loved one, often yearn in vain to see them again? More- 
over, do not many seek to satisfy this craving by a recourse 
to spiritists, at whose seances they hope to meet and converse 
with their departed friends ? Clearly, all such have a super- 
abundant faith in the power of disembodied spirits to return 
to earth, aye, they even earnestly desire it, and nevertheless, 
Gervinus notwithstanding, their firm belief and yearning re- 
main ineffective and fruitless. 

In fine, the theory leaves unexplained how Hamlet, from 
a vague suspicion concerning the suddenness of his father's 
death, came by an overheated imagination to the full and 
true knowledge of the crimes of Claudius with all their par- 
ticular circumstances, and still more of the infidelity of his 
mother, of which, before the revelation of the ghost, he would 
not entertain the least misgiving without supreme repug- 
nance and horror. 

The reality of the ghost is the most important element 
of the tragedy. It is the mainspring of its action. The re- 
venge is based on the revelations of the spectre and its in- 
junction to avenge the crime; and, therefore, unless the 
drama were to lose its force and interest, the ghost must of 
necessity be made an objective reality. Hence, the Poet 
labors through several scenes to portray it vividly with the 

[144] 



scene v. A SWORN RESOLVE 

view of impressing upon his audience its objective truthful- 
ness. If its mission was to Hamlet alone, and if to him alone 
it could reveal its ' ' dread secret, ' ' why does it appear to the 
palace guards first and then to Horatio ? The purpose of the 
Poet is evident. If he made the ghost appear to Hamlet only, 
his audience might, like Gervinus, take it for a merely sub- 
jective spectre, conjured up by Hamlet's supersensitively 
heated imagination. They might further infer that the 
Prince in his excitement and evidently sincere narration of 
his vision, had won the belief of the officers, and this belief 
led them to see the ghost like himself at the appointed time 
and place. This supposition the dramatist foresaw, and em- 
phatically precludes it by causing the ghost to appear first 
to the guards several times, and then to the sceptical Horatio, 
and at last to Hamlet in presence of them all. The Prince 
must be convinced of the reality of the apparition, or he will 
never undertake to carry out the sworn revenge, and he is 
convinced, not only by the evidence of his own senses, but 
also by the testimony of three eye-witnesses of undoubted 
character. 

A SWORN RESOLVE 

Left alone at the sudden disappearance of the ghost, 
Hamlet finds himself in conflict with emotions which over- 
whelm his soul. He had risen above all fear when daring 
to brave the preternatural; but now the atrocities of his 
uncle's crimes, the guilt of his mother, and the terrible 
sufferings of the poor ghost, return upon him with astounding 
force, and bewilder his faculties. His mental strength is 
undermined for the moment, and his heart becomes a prey 
to the tumultuous passions of pity, love, horror, hatred, and 
revenge. Like passions racked the heart of Othello when 
he exclaimed: 

[145] 



THE RIDDLES OP HAMLET acti. 

" Never, Iago. Like to the Pontic sea, 
Whose icy current and compulsive course 
Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but kept due on 
To the Propontic and the Hellespont; 
Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace, 
Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love, 
Till that a capable and wide revenge 
Swallow them up." 



Overmastered for the instant by a thirst for "vengeance 
he calls on the powers of earth, on all the angel choirs of 
heaven, and is even tempted to invoke the malign spirits of 
the infernal regions. Though his mind be obsessed by pas- 
sion, and his feelings roused by an overwhelming sense of 
wrong, yet he battles against the hellish temptation; for, 
mindful of the ghost's injunction, he resists the desire of re- 
turning evil for evil in a personal revenge, and with his ac- 
customed Christian energy rejects at once the horrid thought 
with the exclamation, "0 fie ! fie ! " 

Having conquered the temptation, Hamlet's thoughts 
turn to his father's wrongs and sufferings, which re-enkindle 
his strong filial love into glowing sentiments of duty and de- 
votion, and he solemnly pledges to devote himself and all his 
powers to the henceforth sacred duty of "revenge." 

His father's voice still ringing in his ears, the thoughts of 
his task wholly engrosses his mind, and, as by intuitive glance, 
he grasps the entire situation, with all its circumstances and 
insuperable difficulties. He sees the sagacious villain by the 
usurpation of supreme power, closing against him all the 
avenues of retribution, and himself, alone amid a fawning and 
corrupted court as one in a desert wild, whose voice cries aloud 
in vain for justice. Nevertheless, though the situation be dark 
and dreary ; though the duty imposed upon him involve a task 
seemingly beyond his own unaided strength, he resolves to 
undertake it. Unfaltering in a firmness which is born of an 
energy, native to a will heroic in steadfast purpose he decides 

[146] 






scene v. A DIFFICULT SITUATION 

to cast to the winds his former life with all its aims and 
joys, its hopes and loves, and to enter upon another world, 
where unfettered by purposes common to mankind, he may de- 
vote all the energies of his soul to the single purpose of ex- 
posing the arch- villain, and inflicting a just punishment upon 
him. 

Though the passage concerning Hamlet's writing on his 
tablets is usually taken literally, as if he actually wrote down 
the axiomatic phrase, the supposition seems absurd to many 
readers. Various suggestions have been offered, but Werder's 
seems the most acceptable. Look at Hamlet's situation. The 
ghost has just disappeared, and left him in a state of intense 
suffering. After efforts of self-control, his repressed passions 
break out anew, and at this moment flashes upon his 
heated fancy the phantasmal vision of his ' pernicious' 
mother and of the crowned hypocrite, the smooth- 
spoken scoundrel, who has just been smiling on him and call- 
ing him ' son ' ; and in bitter desperate irony he instinctively 
grasps his tablets, as if to write down his angry burning 
thoughts; but instead he thrusts repeatedly and with ener- 
getic strokes the point of the stylus into the waxen surface in 
a movement similar to thrusting the sword through the heart 
of the 'damned smiling villain', at the same time exclaiming, 
{ ' So uncle, there you are. ' ' 

A DIFFICULT SITUATION 

Hamlet has scarcely sworn his resolve, when the loud 
calls of Horatio and Marcellus, who approach in eager search, 
rouse him from his subjective world of wild thoughts and 
violent emotions. Suddenly awakened to his new situation, he 
hurriedly decides to guard the secret of the ghost from 
friends, whose natural curiosity will transform them into 
unconscious spies: hence, with no time for reflection, he re- 

[147] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET acti. 

solves at once to enter upon a course of action, which, though 
strange, is harmonious with his excited feelings. Assuming 
a roistering and joyful mood, he begins to parody the fal- 
coner's cry of Horatio, and receives his astonished friends 
with the wild and whirling words : l ' Hillo, ho, ho, boy ! Come, 
bird, come." 

Some critics have ascribed Hamlet's strange conduct to 
the curious exaltation which is known to follow such a mental 
shock as was given him by the preternatural visitor, the 
dreadful revelations, and the terrible charge imposed upon 
him. Others prefer to explain his action by the excitement of 
delirium and the wanderings of a mind under the first stroke 
of dementia. May there not, however, be another explana- 
tion, and one more natural, because springing from the very 
circumstances of the incident itself? Hamlet, by nature, 
frank, truthful, and trustful to tried friends, would no doubt, 
under ordinary conditions, have not only revealed his secret 
to these intimates, but also have sought their assistance; but 
now conscious of his highly excited state of mind, and his 
inability to hide it fully, and of want of time for premed- 
itated, thoughtful action, his first impulse is, not only to 
guard the terrible secret, but also, by a wild and distracted 
exterior, to conceal his violent emotions and painful suffer- 
ings. Hence, his boisterous action, his quibbles and 
enigmatical phrases, his fantastic and ludicrous evasions, and 
his jesting and making light of the ghost, all to disarm the 
curiosity of his companions, and to baffle their attempts at 
discovering his secret. 

Unaware of Hamlet's resolve of secrecy, Horatio and 
Marcellus, impelled by natural curiosity, question him 
concerning his experience with the ghost. Their curiosity, al- 
ready great, is still more inflamed by the Prince's repeated 
insistence upon secrecy. They are, however, painfully sur- 

[148] 



scene v. A DIFFICULT SITUATION 

prised to see their keen expectations rewarded by playful 
raillery. Hamlet had, indeed, at first begun in full sincerity 
to satisfy in some degree the rational curiosity of his friends ; 
but no sooner had he uttered a few words than he realized 
the gravity of his alarming disclosure. As a consequence, he 
instantly checks himself, and closes the sentence with a baf- 
fling jest: 

"There's ne'er a villain dwelling in all Denmark — 
But he's an arrant knave." 

He foresees that the revelation of his secret even in a 
small degree will only provoke a desire for further informa- 
tion ; hence, after receiving a gentle reprimand from the staid 
Horatio, which he takes in good part as justly merited, he cuts 
off all further questioning, by dismissing them with shake of 
hand, and with the parting advice to look after pressing af- 
fairs : as they have matters which demand attention, so has he. 
Mindful, moreover, of his feebleness against the difficulties 
which beset his sworn resolve, he speaks of his own "poor 
part, ' ' and, from the consciousness of the need of divine aid in 
the performance of his task, he remarks, "I'll go pray" to 
heaven for light and assistance. To Horatio, of course, who 
is wholly in the dark, these enigmatical words seem nothing but 
empty badinage, and only irritate him to reply more sharply 
than before: 

* ' These are but wild and whirling words, my lord. ' ' 

Hamlet, who really loved his trusted friend, was quick to 
show pain at the evident offense, which his quibbles and heart- 
less words had unintentionally given, and at once, while en- 
joining a restraint of further curiosity, admits by way of 
apology, that the spectre was not a demon, as they had sur- 
mised, but rather a good spirit, in fact, a truthful and "honest 
ghost." 

[149] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET acti. 



'BY SAINT PATRICK' 






That the Prince of Denmark should swear by St. Patrick, 
the patron Saint of distant Ireland, has proven an enigma to 
many, and various have been the explanations offered. Mob- 
erly suggested that as St. Patrick was the patron saint of 
blunders and confusion, he was fittingly invoked, when "the 
time was out of joint." Such a blundering animadversion 
concerning a venerated character was clearly prompted by nat- 
ional and religious prejudice. It may have passed muster 
with those whose ancestors had for centuries persecuted the 
race of which St. Patrick is the patron, but it is deemed ludi- 
crous by open-minded and unbiased critics. 

A more reasonable solution is offered by Clyde : St. Pat- 
rick, a Scotch missionary in Ireland at the beginning of the 
fifth century, was said to have cleared the island of snakes, 
and Hamlet is apparently referring to this legend in connec- 
tion with his father 's words, ' ' a serpent stung me. ' ' 

Warburton's suggestion appears, however, the most prob- 
able. He says that in the days of Hamlet all the northern 
peoples had their learning from Ireland, and that, therefore, 
the name of the Irish national patron was commonly known 
among them. Though this suggestion seem ingenious to some, 
it is, nevertheless, more reasonable than any other offered, 
because clearly founded upon known historic facts. Certain 
annotators, who ignore the difficulty, or gloss it over, or treat 
it superficially like Moberry, may be referred to the Encyclo- 
pedia Britannica. It says : ' ■ The real work of the Irish mis- 
sionaries in converting the pagans of Britain and central 
Europe, and sowing the seeds of culture there, has been over- 
looked, when not willfully misrepresented. ' ' Ireland was con- 
verted to Christianity in the fifth century, and because of her 
isolated position, she enjoyed immunity from the incursions 
of the Northmen until the close of the eighth century. 

[150] 



scene v. "BY SAINT PATRICK" 

Historical authorities unanimously affirm, not only that the 
renown which Ireland's schools of learning attained during 
this period of calm, attracted many students from England 
and the Continent, but also that from her schools went forth 
many men of learning as missionaries to Germany, Friesland, 
France, and Switzerland, where in propagating Christianity, 
they laid the foundations of monasteries, which in time be- 
came great seats of learning. 17 

Considering then the well authenticated facts that Irish 
missionaries were the pioneers of Christianity and learning 
among the Teutonic races; that Irish scholars founded many 
monasteries in Germany, which at great centres of population 
became renowned schools of learning ; and that in these schools 
were educated the sons of nobles and of kings, we naturally 
conclude that the name and character of St. Patrick was of 
common knowledge, and even highly honored and revered 
among the people that received their religion from Irish mis- 
sionaries, and their learning from Irish scholars. Hence it is 
most probable that the Danish Prince of the eleventh century, 
who imbibed his religion and his philosophy at a school in Ger« 
many, 18 knew more of Ireland's national saint, than the aver- 
age modern Englishman knows of his ; and, therefore, the fact 
that Hamlet swears by St. Patrick seems less strange than 
that an Englishman swears by St. George. 

17 "The Irish were the first preachers of the Gospel in Germany. In coracles 

of rude boats of wickerwork covered with tanned hides, they crossed the 
sea, and pushed up the Rhine and Scheldt. St. Frindolin planted himself 
in the Rhine island of Seckingen at the foot of the Black Forest. Foilan 
and Ultan preached on the Meuse. Kilian and Colman and Totnau made 
Wurtzburg the centre of their apostolic labors. The extraordinary number 
of monastic institutions of Ireland, not only fostered these splendid mis- 
sionary enterprises, but offered asylums to half a continent. From Eng- 
land and from Germany, students came to receive in these schools their 
classical learning, their knowledge of Greek literature of which Irish 
scholars were passionately fond, and their philosophical and theological 
training". Guggenberger, "General History of the Christian Era", Vol. 
1, p. 196. 

18 Vide P. I. C, V., p. 36. (?) 

[151] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET acti. 

ST. PATRICK'S PURGATORY 

This solution of the difficulty may be satisfactory in so 
far as it shows that the Poet kept within the probabilities 
when he made Hamlet familiar with the national saint of 
Ireland. But, as Shakespeare, after all, is the only one ac- 
countable, it may be asked why he used the term "St. Pat- 
rick." Was there anything in his mind to suggest the word, 
or anything in the scene to prompt its use ? Both the one and 
the other query would, from the following consideration, seem 
to merit an affirmative reply. A few years before the appear- 
ance of The Tragedy of Hamlet, a play known as The Honest 
Wench was published by Dekker, a dramatist and contemp- 
orary of Shakespeare. In it he employs the phrase, "St. 
Patrick, you know, keeps purgatory." His remark was evi- 
dently founded on the well-known legend of St. Patrick's Pur- 
gatory; but his erroneous supposition that the Saint was its 
keeper, shows his unfamiliarity with particulars of the story. 

St. Patrick's Purgatory had been the centre of pilgrim- 
ages from far remote times, and even to-day attracts annually 
about three thousand pilgrims. Its entrance is a dark deep 
cavern situated on a small island in Lough Derg, county of 
Donegal. The punishments undergone were similar to those 
which were later described by Dante in the Divina Gommedia. 
It is asserted by several writers that Dante was well informed 
regarding St. Patrick's Purgatory. It is highly probable that 
he derived his inspiration for the Purgatorio from Irish tradi- 
tions and numerous public pilgrimages with which he must 
have been familiar from the writings of the historian Bede, 
as well as from detailed descriptions found in the works of 
Geraldus Cambrensis, Dionysius Carthusiensis, and Henricus 
Salterensis, a contemporary of St. Bernard. 

Its history is full of Dantesque episodes which have won 
for the shrine a place in European literature. Its connection 

[152] 



scene v. ST. PATRICK'S PURGATORY 

with St. Patrick is not only a constant tradition, but is also 
supported by historical evidence, and is admitted by the learn- 
ed Bollandists. After many researches they found the follow- 
ing well authenticated tradition: 

"When St. Patrick, in the desire of converting certain 
wicked nobles, preached to them the terrors of the damned 
and the joys of the blessed, they replied that they would 
never be converted to Christ by his preaching and miracles, 
unless some one of them might see the punishment of the 
wicked and the happiness of the good, in order to be 
assured of the truth by facts rather than by promises. In 
answer to the prayers of the Saint, the Lord led him into a 
desert place, and showed him a dark deep cavern, saying 
that anyone dwelling there during one day and night, 
sincerely penitent and armed with the true faith, would be 
purified from his sins, and in passing through the cavern 
would see the torments of the wicked, and also the joys of 
the blessed." (Acta Sanctorum, XVII. Martii, de S. 
Patricio in Appendice, parag. V. de Purgatorio S. Patricii.) 

It is beyond doubt that the " Purgatory" became famous 
as a place of pilgrimage and devotion early in the Middle 
Ages. Medieval chroniclers mention it, and as early as 1120, 
David, the Rector of Wiirtzburg wrote a graphic description. 
Pilgrims came not only from all parts of Ireland and Britain, 
but also from the Continent. Numerous accounts of these for- 
eign pilgrimages were chronicled during the 13th., 14th., and 
15th., centuries. On their way to the " Purgatory" in 1358, a 
Hungarian knight and an Italian nobleman were granted a 
safe passage through England by King Edward II. King 
Richard II. accorded a like favor to a knight of Rhodes with a 
train of 20 horsemen. The shrine was visited in 1516 by a 
French knight, and in the year following by the Papal Nun- 
cio, Chiericati, who wrote an interesting account of his visit. 
The "Purgatory" found its way into Italian prose, was 
made the subject of a romance in the 14th century, and in the 
17th was dramatized by Calderon, the Shakespeare of Spain. 

[153] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET acti. 

It became widely known in England especially from a work, 
which, was composed by Henry, a Benedictine monk, in 1158, 
and in which Sir Owain, a knight of King Stephen's court, 
is described as entering and passing through St. Patrick's 
Purgatory. 

From the foregoing facts it is evident that the knowledge 
of St. Patrick's Purgatory was wide-spread and even common 
to the English people, and, therefore, that Shakespeare was 
at least as familiar with it as was Dekker a fellow dramatist. 
The application of his knowledge is clearly seen in the present 
intance, if turning back a few lines in the scene, we recall 
the appearance of the ghost fresh from the fires of purgatory, 
and the revelation of its terrible sufferings, which so " har- 
rowed up the soul" of Hamlet, and froze "his young blood" 
that he called on heaven "to bear him stiffly up," lest his 
heart should fail and his "sinews grow instant old." His 
heart full of filial love and devotion, was so penetrated by the 
agonizing words of the purgatorial ghost that he could but 
cry : ' ' Remember thee ! Ay, thou poor suffering ghost, while 
memory holds a seat in this distracted globe ! ' ' Before re- 
covering from this state of excitement and deep affliction, he 
meets Horatio and Marcellus, and a few moments later, with 
the idea of purgatory and the sufferings of his father still 
vividly present to his mind, he swears by St. Patrick. Clear- 
ly it is a case of association of ideas, in which one thought — 
the thought of purgatory — recalls to Hamlet 's mind another 
idea with which it was naturally connected. 

THE CRUSADER'S OATH 

Having in fine partly satisfied the curiosity of his friends, 
by admitting at least the reality and honesty of the ghost, 
Hamlet perceives at once the necessity of swearing them to 
secrecy. If the rumor once reached the court that the ghost 

[154] 



scene v. THE CRUSADER'S OATH 

of his father had appeared to him, it would rouse the crafty 
usurper to set in motion the secret agents of the state, in order 
to discover the truth. The knowledge would, moreover, irri- 
tate the guilty conscience of the king, inflame his mind with 
suspicions, cause him from fear of strategems to guard himself 
more closely, and so render the project of revenge still more 
difficult of attainment. Hamlet, accordingly, with intense earn- 
estness swears his friends to secrecy. Not satisfied with their 
pledge of Christian faith, he insists on their placing hands 
upon the uplifted cross-like hilt of his sword, and solemnly 
swearing by the Christian sign of salvation, ' ' never to disclose 
what they have seen." 

To swear by the edge of the sword was a custom common 
to pre-Christian pagans ; but later, European nations took the 
oath upon the sword itself. At the time of the crusades, how- 
ever, when knighthood had reached its highest glory, 
each aspirant was sworn on the cross-hilt of his sword. 19 
The supreme binding force of this oath arose from the fact 
that is was a religious oath, sworn on the symbol of the cross 
which had been stained and glorified by the blood of the Sav- 
ior of mankind, through whom alone there is hope of salvation. 
The violation of this sacred oath, not only dishonored and un- 
knighted the culprit, but made him, moreover, a social and sac- 
rilegious outcast among his fellowmen. 

Hamlet's insistence on the solemn swearing of his friends 
for the second time upon the cross-hilt of his sword, as well 
as his manifest excitement and strange action, was indeed a 
matter of much wonderment to them. They could in no man- 
ner divine his ulterior purpose ; but it was of incalculable im- 
portance to his design of "revenge" that they should not dis- 

19 The investiture of a Christian knight was a solemn ceremony. The candidate 
prepared himself by prayer and fasting, watched in arms in a chapel 
through the night, and on the following morning was with religious rites 
invested with the rank of knighthood. He was animated by lofty ideals, 
and vowed by solemn oath to defend, even at the peril of his life, the 
cause of truth, justice, and religion against all enemies. 

C 155] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET acti. 

close what they had heard, and, therefore, no other oath, save 
the most sacred would relieve him of anxiety. He himself has 
foresworn to sacrifice every interest of human life in the per- 
formance of a sacred duty. As a fearless knight, he is about 
to enter the field of combat against a moral monster in the 
defense of truth, justice, and religion : of truth, by unmasking 
a villainous hypocrite: of justice, by deposing a murderous 
usurper; and of religion, by bringing retribution upon a 
criminal who unscrupulously violated the moral laws of the 
social and religious order. 

Though bewildered by Hamlet 's great excitement, Horatio 
and Marcellus are still more mystified at hearing a voice from 
beneath the stage urging them repeatedly to swear as the 
Prince demands. This ghost, or "fellow in the cellarage" 
whom Hamlet addresses so flippantly and sarcastically, should 
not be considered the same as the ghost of the dead king. 
Such a confusion were repugnant to the son's devotion to his 
father and the marked filial love and respect shown him in the 
earlier part of the same scene. The discordance is due to the 
fact that this portion of the text is in all probability borrowed 
in the main from an earlier tragedy of Hamlet, which had ob- 
tained popularity upon the stage. The supposed presence of 
the ghost "in the cellarage," and Hamlet's strange and dis- 
respectful replies to it, strongly suggest the old Morality 
Plays, which were still prevalent in the Poet's day. In these 
Plays, spirits or ghosts were concealed beneath the stage, and 
the player personifying Vice was accustomed to speak famil- 
iarly with the evil spirit, and even to jest with him. Set 
phrases were in common use: — as, "Ah, ha, Boy! are you 
there?" "Old mole! can'st work in the earth so fast?" These 
and similar terms from their connection with Morality Plays, 
were clearly understood by Shakespeare's audience. It is, there- 
fore, highly probable that the Poet retained this part of the 

[156] 



scene v. HAMLET _'&.EHILOSePH?P 

older drama without much alteration, because it had become 
a popular favorite, and above all, because it was likely to stay 
Hamlet's friends from further curiosity concerning his fath- 
er's ghost. 

Still excited, he now urges with great insistence that his 
friends swear another and third oath of secrecy : never to dis- 
close their knowledge of his ' ' antic disposition. ' ' He can feel 
secure with nothing less than a solemn oath upon the cross-hilt 
of his sword. His insistence bewilders Horatio, who supposes 
that the new oath is to be a mere repetition of the others. In 
consequence, utterly perplexed, he is unable longer to restrain 
his feelings of amazement, and utters an exclamation of sur- 
prise, which draws from Hamlet the sharp significant retort, 
that there are more things in heaven and earth than are known 
in our philosophy. 

HAMLET'S AND HORATIO'S PHILOSOPHY 

Horatio's philosophy was the same as that of Hamlet's; 
both had studied at the same school in Germany. But the 
Prince is now richer in knowledge than his friend. His new 
experience has exposed the futility of human science in the 
presence of the supernatural. All natural philosophy is con- 
cerned only with our visible world of existence and its causes 
and effects. When it attempts to invade the realm of the pre- 
ternatural and still more the supernatural, it finds itself bar- 
red at the very threshold of another, but invisible and myster- 
ious world, which must remain forever impenetrable to the 
purely human mind. How often, notwithstanding Hamlet's 
Caveat, do we see men, eminent in some natural science, wan- 
der from their own sphere, and invade a strange and unex- 
plored region where dogmatizing in arrogance, they fatuously 
expect men of sense to accept them as Sir Oracles whose ipse 
dixit is the final word of truth? Such arrogance recalls the 

[157] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act i. 

case of the cobbler who pounded away on his last for six days 
of the week, and on the seventh mounted the pulpit, and in 
simple-minded ignorance pounded the Bible with the same 
energy. Of such, a poet says : 

"A little learning is a dangerous thing! 
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring; 
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, 
And drinking largely sobers them again.' ' 

But the cobbler at least had reason on his side ; for his whole 
religion was the Bible only, as interpreted solely by his own 
light, however imperfect it might be. Far different, however, is 
the religion of the olden Church. Its theology is constructed 
on divine revelation as known from Sacred Scripture ; on the 
oral teachings and practices of the Apostles and their succes- 
sors, the Fathers of the infant Church ; on doctrines harmon- 
ious and well denned by decrees of exact terminology: all 
constituting a science of theology preeminent in the domain of 
the supernatural, and which, elucidated and perfected by the 
greatest minds through successive ages, demands for its mas- 
tery a course of study as arduous as that of any human science. 
If, therefore, in ignorance of this fact or indifferent to it, cer- 
tain men will blindly enter this terra incognita, to dogmatize 
concerning another science, in which they are not even tyros, 
it is but natural for them to blunder. If it seem wondrous 
strange, let them hearken to Shakespeare's philosopher: 

"And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. 
There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in our philosophy. ' ' 

Though Freethinkers are wont to admire and laud Lord 
Bacon much, they remain oblivious of his immortal maxim: 
"A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism; but 
depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion." 
Hamlet 's words are like Bacon's a manifest stroke at Mater- 

[158] 



scene v. THE MASQUERADE 

ialists and others of the Rationalistic school, who profess to 
reject all truths save those of sense preception. In view of his 
newly acquired knowledge, he could well affirm the existence 
of other and higher truths in Heaven and on Earth than those 
known to their philosophy. If Shakespeare in his exalted 
genius, were, as is often affirmed, a man far in advance of his 
age, we might readily imagine him with eagle eye peering 
down in prophetic vision through the long drawn avenues of 
future time, and hearing in surprise the many clamorous con- 
tradictions of our modern philosophers. Though living in the 
twentieth century, they are still ignorant of the import of 
Hamlet's words to Horatio, and, in consequence, reject the 
supernatural order and its divinely revealed truths. Of them, 
Ford, a dramatist and contemporary of Shakespeare wrote: 

' ' These are no school points : Nice philosophy 
May tolerate unlikely arguments, 
But Heaven admits no jest. Wits that presum'd 
On wit too much, by striving how to prove 
There was no God, with foolish grounds of art 
Discover 'd first the nearest way to hell, 
And filed the world with knavish atheism. ' ' 

THE MASQUERADE 

After the disappearance of the ghost, Hamlet found him- 
self in a most trying position. We have seen that he had not 
yet recovered from the terrible and overpowering agony, in- 
duced by the appalling revelations from the spirit world, when 
Horatio and Marcellus broke in suddenly upon him; and how 
he felt unable to conceal from them the actual condition of his 
shattered and blighted being. If the outward, irrepressible 
expression of the torture, the stifled cries of woe, and the 
agony raging in his inner nature, would lead them to con- 
clude that he is driven to distraction, and perhaps to the bor- 
derland of madness, he would nurture their illusion by giving 

[159] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET acti. 

vent to his feelings, as far as might be, without the betrayal of 
his secret. 

His impulse is instinctively prompted by the situation. 
He must act on the instant without reflection and do what is 
most advantageous according to his circumstances. When, 
however, he observes from his conversation with his friends 
how the mimicry of madness, so suddenly assumed, has proven, 
not only a grateful disguise of his troubled spirits, but also an 
aid in the guarding of his secret, he quickly grasps in a gen- 
eral way the utility to be derived from the continuance of the 
role. The masquerade, while costing him little trouble and 
bringing no disgrace, will offer him a ready shelter from the 
society of his fellow-men, and so afford him ample time to re- 
flect upon the manner and the means whereby he shall accomp- 
lish the task of " revenge." 

After the revelations of the ghost, he perceives all has been 
changed around him. His past life in all its relations has 
been obliterated, and he awakes to the fact that he is in a new 
world of action in which noble thoughts and aspirations have 
been expelled by horrid purposes and feelings. His soul now 
overcharged and his heart oppressed by the terrible secret, 
he feels he can no longer mingle at court, and breathe its pol- 
luted atmosphere. His feigned insanity will free him from 
attendance, and from the necessity of maintaining friendly 
relations with the murderer. It will allow him to wander at 
pleasure, afford opportunities to reconnoitre, and even to peer 
into the secret life of the King. It will protect him from any 
nefarious design, since his uncle will see in his evident madness 
his own absolute hold on the crown. Hence, under the cover 
of insanity, he can enter upon more active operations against 
the criminal than would otherwise be possible. If he fail in 
one attack, he can enter upon another, with the assured pro- 
tection of assumed imbecility. 

[160] 






scene v. THE TIME IS OUT OF JOINT 

His new role will not only conceal the excess of wildness 
and frivolity, which spring from his highly excited condition, 
but also remove intolerable restraints and allow him to vent 
without suspicion, the fires raging in his turbulent soul. Be- 
hind the mask he may veil and yet unburden his overheated 
mind when, in outbursts of extravagance or irony, he gives ex- 
pression to his burning thoughts, to sentiments of bitterness, 
and to frozen or fevered feelings, which all the while, though 
portrayed in mimic madness, will be no more than the expres- 
sion of his lacerated mind and heart. He foresees that his 
changed demeanor towards the King, for whom he has the ut- 
most loathing, and towards the Queen, for whom he has lost 
all respect, will be marked as strange and unaccountable, and 
be ascribed to a sudden stroke of dementia. Nothing will 
serve him better. True, he can not taint his soul by murder- 
ing the King, but he can, by an assumed madness, conceal 
from the court, the cause of his grief, and also his sworn re- 
solve to expose his uncle's guilt, and to bring him to condign 
punishment. But to meet with success, he must guard his 
counterfeit madness against even the breath of suspicion. 
Hence, while disclosing to his friends, his purpose of putting 
on an "antic disposition," he swears them to secrecy in the 
most solemn manner. This confidential disclosure, though 
uncalled for and unnecessary on the part of Hamlet, is, 
nevertheless, very necessary on the part of the audience, in 
order that sharing in the secret of Horatio, they may like him 
understand the true position and the part which the hero is to 
play in the evolution of the dramatic plot. 

THE TIME IS OUT OF JOINT 

When with their hands upon the cross-hilt of Hamlet's 
sword, Horatio and Marcellus had sworn by the grace and 
mercy of God the last and solemn oath of secrecy, and then 

[161] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act i 

kissed the cross, the Prince in turn expressed his love and 
friendship, and promised that, God willing, he shall not be 
slow in proving it, even though he be now indeed "so poor a 
man." The scene closes, as departing together, Hamlet in 
harassed feelings and bitterness of soul exclaims : 

"The time is out of joint: — cursed spite, 
That ever I was born to set it right!" 

These last lines have been seized upon by certain com- 
mentators as a proof of the theory that Hamlet 's character is 
tainted by cowardice and vacillation. Trench says : * ' Hamlet 
here under the stress of his responsibility appears to deteriorate 
already. For this very religious man, who desires to go and 
pray, who is careful to distinguish between grace and mercy, 
and who says ' God willing ' with regard to actions in futurity, 
now irreligiously curses his birth." These assertions are, as 
shall appear, a shocking misinterpretation which arises from 
a failure to appreciate Hamlet's strongly Christian character. 
That he is a very religious man is indeed to his credit, and 
causes him to seek light and aid from on high for the perform- 
ance of a task which he does not decline, but which he sees 
is very difficult ; that he distinguishes between grace and mer- 
cy, reveals his Christian knowledge ; for in fact they are rad- 
ically distinct as cause and effect; that he says 'God willing' 
proves his daily life to have been animated by his religious 
faith. The phrase 'God willing' has always been in common 
use among devout Christians, and manifests their belief in an 
all-ruling Providence, who alone is Master of human life and 
of future activities. That Hamlet has already deteriorated at 
the close of the first Act, is an assertion so fantastic that its 
refutation is evident from the consideration of his actual sit- 
uation. 

The ghost had disappeared just a few moments before. 
Its horrid revelations so astounding, had inflicted upon Ham- 
let's whole being an overwhelming shock. The intrusion of his 

[162] 






scene v. THE TIME IS OUT OF JOINT 

friends had allowed him no time to master his thoughts and 
feelings, no time to reflect upon his position, nor the nature 
of his task, nor the how, when, and where of its performance. 
In a maze of confusion, he perceived, however, its seemingly 
insuperable difficulties ; and, in consequence, uttered the words 
in question. Yet we are asked to believe that they were spoken 
in fear by a man, who a few minutes before had out-braved 
Horatio and Marcellus in superhuman daring and reckless in- 
difference to life. 

As Hamlet has so far shown with certainty no weakness 
of will or irresolution, but rather a fortitude and quickness of 
decision and action, his words should surely be read in another 
sense. Is not his cry against the "cursed spite" of fortune, 
the voice of his irascible nature, which has been profoundly 
exasperated by a sense of shame, of wrong, of isolation, and 
above all by the insurmountable difficulties that encompass his 
task? Any man endowed like Hamlet with a grand moral 
nature and a keen sense of honor, would naturally experience 
an affliction of soul and an irritation of feelings at the horrid 
thought of a father murdered and a mother disgraced by an 
uncle whose villainy enthroned is abetted by the powers of 
the state. 

Moreover, in presence of his task, Hamlet sees himself in 
complete isolation. He is estranged from the court of Elsinore, 
where the Queen enslaved by passion, is blind to her moral 
degradation, and where the King long addicted to evil is given 
to riotous revelries. He cannot look for help or guidance to 
his natural councilors who are now under the power and hos- 
tile influence of the criminal monarch. If Horatio, his one 
trusty friend, be a brave soldier he is no councilor, and with- 
out initiative is wholly passive, and devoid of the needed cun- 
ning of diplomacy. 

Truly "the time is out of joint." Evil surrounds him 
[163] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET acti. 

everywhere. The more he reflects, the more impossible his task 
seems to become ; not because he feels a naturally strong repug- 
nance to the shedding of human blood ; not because he is weak 
of will and irresolute in character ; but because the ' ' revenge ' ■ 
is surrounded by insuperable impediments. Before him is the 
"smiling damned villain," enthroned in an armed fortress 
where shrewd and crafty he is prepared to meet every attack. 
How shall he reach the criminal and bring him to justice ? In 
total darkness and in presence of impassable obstacles he sees 
neither the way nor the means of procedure. Objective diffi- 
culties apparently insurmountable stare him in the face on 
every side, irritate his soul, and wring from him the cry of 
agony against his cruel fate. His wish, therefore, that he were 
never born into a world where good is ignored and evil 
praised ; where virtue is vanquished and crime triumphant, is 
but a passionate expression which is prompted, not indeed by 
his rational, but by his irascible nature, and is indicative of 
his highly wrought feelings consequent upon his vivid sense of 
utter helplessness. His words express the crux of the drama, 
and their solution is the tragedy itself. 

The Poet would have us understand this fact from the 
very start; and, therefore, to guard us against the mistaken 
notion of his hero being a shuffling and vacillating character 
who, magnificent of intellect, but weak in energy, is ever ready 
to grasp at excuses for delay, he warns us by the lips of Ham- 
let at the close of this first Act, that the delay of the "re- 
venge" is due, not to weakness of will, but wholly to subjective 
and objective causes ; that it arises, not from any defect in tne 
hero's character, but entirely and necessarily from the very 
nature and conditions which underlie the task itself: all this 
shall be clearly evolved in the progress of the tragic action. 



[164] 



ACT SECOND 
SCENE FIRST 

THE AGENT'S INSTRUCTIONS 

The audience has been roused to a keen and concen- 
trated interest during the preceding Act, and now needs 
some relief from its high tension of mind. Such relief in the 
Poet's day was not afforded by orchestral interludes, as in 
the modern drama, but by means intrinsic to the Play itself. 
As in Macbeth the comic scene of the Porter at the gate 
brings a grateful interruption of the tense excitement, which 
was consequent upon Duncan's Murder and its discovery, so 
in the present instance a senile minister, parading his shallow 
wisdom, is the innocent and unconscious cause of some mo- 
ments of restful mirth. 

The scene by a skillful strategem impresses upon us the 
idea of a considerable lapse of time since the departure of 
Laertes for Paris, and also, as a matter of more importance, 
discloses the morals common to the social life of the times. 

Hamlet and Laertes are pictured according to their dif- 
ferent inclinations : the one, a royal prince imbibing intellec- 
tual culture and moral refinement among the Christian peo- 
ple of Germany ; the other, a courtier, seeking to acquire the 
knightly accomplishments which were common to the nobles 
and cavaliers of Paris. 

Though the low moral ebb in the social world in which 
Hamlet was compelled to move on his return to Denmark, 
stands already revealed in the conduct of Claudius and Ger- 
trude, it is now further illustrated in the senile chancellor, 
who in euphuistic phrases of seemingly profound instruction, 

[165] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actii. 

exposes to Reynaldo his notions of morality, and, as if from 
his own youthful experience, his low expectations of his son's 
moral conduct in the distant capital. The disclosure may 
seem surprising and even contradictory to the trait, charac- 
teristic of doting parents : blind and indulgent to the defects 
of their offspring, they are ever quick to credit any good, and 
slow to believe any evil of them. In his instruction to the 
spy, Polonius not only acts against this parental instinct, 
but, moreover, stoops to disreputable means in order to ferret 
out the evil habits and inclinations which he supposes natural 
to his son. 

Reynaldo, the agent of the Danish government, is com- 
missioned to visit Paris with the purpose of discovering what 
"Danskers," or Danes dwell there, by what means they live, 
what they spend, and what kind of company they keep. In 
particular, he is to mingle with the associates of Laertes, 
and learn from them the course of his life in Paris. These 
minute and superabundant instructions of Polonius exhibit 
his characteristic conceit. Loath to acknowledge any acumen 
or even common sense in his accredited agent, he proceeds 
laboriously to illumine Reynaldo in the futile cunning of his 
own diplomacy, and to initiate him in his boasted method of 
stealing upon the truth, as a sneak-thief, unawares. 

Reynaldo must claim some slight acquaintance with 
Laertes, and by innuendoes hint at his " wanton, wild, and 
usual slips as are common to youth and liberty;" such as 
drinking, swearing, quarelling, and drabbing. These, how- 
ever, he must consider light, as the " taints of liberty, the 
outbreaks of a fiery mind, and the wildness of untamed 
blood." The character of Laertes being thus besmirched, his 
companions will readily admit his faults, his carousals, gambl- 
ing, spendthrift ways, and other taints ; and thus by cunning, 
by round-about ways, and by trials of his inclinations, Rey- 

[166] 



scene i. THE AGENT'S INSTRUCTIONS 

naldo shall "by indirections find directions out." In fine, 
lie must keep his eye upon the son, and, without restraining 
him in the indulgence of his passions, let him ply his course, 
so as the more surely to reveal his weaknesses and inclina- 
tions. The whole lecture exhibits the low morals of the old 
chancellor, who in senile weakness of intellect, loses himself 
in meaningless distinctions, and, though subject to frequent 
lapse of memory, still clings to his former devious and dis- 
honorable ways. 

The low estimate which Polonius had of the moral char- 
acter of his son was the consequence of his loss of faith in 
humanity. He was wont to assume it to be totally depraved, 
and, accordingly, we see him ready to distrust his own daugh- 
ter 's virtue, to malign without scruple the pure character of 
the noble minded Hamlet, and even to take for granted the 
existence of such evil traits and practices in his own loved 
son, as would taint the reputation of an honorable pagan, no 
less than that of a Christian gentleman. Persons of a low 
moral life are usually inclined to judge others by their own 
standards. 

Polonius is in all probability a burlesque of the old prime 
minister of Elizabeth. The latter was in his dotage when 
Shakespeare knew him, and as delineated by Macaulay and 
Lingard reflected certain noted traits of the minister of Clau- 
dius. An impelling motive for caricature was the strong dis- 
like which was inspired by Burghley's cruel treatment of the 
Poet 's maternal relative, as well as of his patrons. As a like 
feeling caused him to ridicule sir Lucy in the ludicrous Jus- 
tice Shallow, so we have weighty reasons for supposing that a 
more intense dislike prompted him to caricature in Polonius 
the aged minister of Elizabeth. Burghley's policy was iden- 
tical with that of which Polonius boasts to Reynaldo. Of his 

[167] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act ii. 

treatment of those who were arrested for ministering secretly 
to the religious wants of their persecuted Catholic brethren, 
Seldon writes: "Before they come to their trial, they are 
cozened to confess upon examination. Upon this trick, they 
are made to believe that somebody had confessed before 
them ; and then they think it a piece of honor to be clear and 
ingenuous, and that destroys them." 20 That this cozenage 
was familiar to Burghley is shown by his letter to Puckering 
under date of August 30, 1592, and by many instances, one of 
which is the case of Campion as recorded by Lingard. 21 His 
practice, says Simpson, 22 falls in exactly with Shakespeare's 
picture of Polonius instructing Reynaldo how "by the bait 
of falsehood to take the carp of truth," and "by indirec- 
tions to find directions out." 

There is a special purpose in thus disclosing the charac- 
teristic meanness of Polonius. We are to realize that the 
Prince 's dislike of him was not the result of prejudice ; that 
the revulsion of feeling and contempt, which he always felt, 
and which he was never slow to manifest in the presence of 
the "prating old fool," was due to elements which are as 
mutually destructive as are fire and water. Their ideals and 
principles were contradictory. Hamlet, the idealist, wor- 
shipped the good, the beautiful, and the true ; but these senti- 
ments had no attraction for the old chancellor, who as a poli- 
tician dealt largely with the bad and ignoble side of human 
nature, and, under the guise of diplomacy, resorted to the 
cunning of hypocrisy. Qualities so opposed inevitably brought 
on a conflict in which, as in the clash of flint and steel, Ham- 
let never failed in flash of satire, of scornful sarcasm, or of 
raillery. 

20 Cf. Richard Simpson's "Life of Edmund Campion", p. 354. 

21 Of. "History of England", Vol. VI, c. 5. 
2 2 Ibidem. 

[168] 



scene i. A DISCLOSURE 



A DISCLOSURE 



Another purpose of the Poet is to allow us to see the 
moral nature of Laertes through his own father's eyes: "an 
honest father knows his own son." If a brother's love for a 
sister has blinded several critics to the true character of 
Laertes, as revealed in the drama ; if they enlarge and grow 
eloquent upon his natural affection, and proclaim it a grand 
quality, which must ennoble him in the eyes of all; their 
criticism seems superficial and is certainly misleading. Laer- 
tes ' affection for his sister cannot redeem other evil traits of 
his moral nature. Such love is instinctive in pagan, Jew, or 
Christian, and, morever, is not a characteristic quality which 
distinguishes the virtuous from the vicious, nor even a spe- 
cific difference between man and the brute creation. Hence, 
the well-known fact that, though a man has shipwrecked his 
moral nature in the slough of evil, and become a criminal of 
the worst type, there still lives in his heart a flame of in- 
stinctive affection for a sister or a brother. This natural 
love, therefore, because instinctive, can of itself neither ele- 
vate nor ennoble a man's moral nature, when otherwise at- 
tainted by moral evil. 

Shakespeare, as a consequence, does not enlarge upon 
this affection of Laertes for his sister, even though it be the 
most striking quality of a man, who, in contrast to the hero 
of the drama, is weak in mind and morals. If in a later scene, 
he causes him to manifest it at the grave of Ophelia, in a form 
unseemingly exaggerated, it is only to inflame and emphasize 
the nobler- love of a nobler man who loves her more than 
"forty thousand brothers." If in the present scene, the 
Poet designs us to see Laertes as his father sees him, and to 
have the same opinion of his moral life, it is to prepare us 
all unconsciously against a great shock, when later we shall 

[169] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actii. 

see him enter so readily and unscrupulously into a vile and 
cowardly plot against the life of a Prince, whom he knows to 
be his friend, sincere, innocent, and honorable. 

AN UNANNOUNCED VISITOR 

Polonius had scarcely said farewell to Reynaldo, when 
his daughter in breathless excitement rushes into his pres- 
ence to tell how Hamlet had just now entered her sewing 
closet, and, without uttering a word, stood before her, pale 
and trembling, with tortured look, and apparel all disor- 
dered. His strange appearance had astonished and affrighted 
her. She was unaware of the new grief that afflicted the 
Prince's mind. It was a grief of cumulative intensity, in- 
duced by the ghostly revelation of his father's murder, his 
uncle's treachery, and his mother's perfidy. In its combined 
force it had almost smothered his belief in womankind ; but 
he fondly clung to the lingering hope that he could still trust 
the fidelity of Ophelia. From ignorance of a sinful world, he 
had loved her hitherto through all the days of his joyous 
youth, and was loth to mistrust her affection and sincerity. 
If at the disappearance of the ghost he had sworn to 

1 ' Wipe away all trivial fond records, 
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, 
That youth and observation copied there," 

it was because he felt that the sacred duty which his father's 
spirit had imposed upon him, necessarily shut out all human 
joy and love. His resolve, however, was less easy of fulfil- 
ment than he had thought. Ophelia's refusal of his letters 
and his visits had roused him to realize that his love for her, 
though foresworn, still survived with uncommon strength. He 
had loved her better than he knew, had called her his soul's 
idol, and, after his mother, his ideal woman. If the tumult 

[170] 



scene i. AN UNANNOUNCED VISITOR 

of other passions had for the moment crowded out his affec- 
tion, it now proved itself unchanged and permanent. Need 
his love for her so antagonize his sworn task as to leave no 
room for both within his heart? Whatever doubt he felt 
was increased by Ophelia 's passiveness and ready compliance 
with her father's orders. Her action, so unlike a genuine 
lover's, deeply afflicted him. If she, the love of his youth 
and the only woman whom he still believed and trusted, re- 
pelled his letters, and denied him her presence, he struggled 
in mental affliction to believe that she acted solely at her 
father's command, and that, true to his love, she was not 
false like his mother. To see for himself and to test the 
truth, he threw aside all ceremony, and unannounced hur- 
riedly entered her apartment. ~~ 
As Ophelia 's description of Hamlet 's visit follows imme- 
diately after his interview with the ghost, many readers 
naturally imagine that he went at once to see her, and in the 
same attire, which was disordered from his violent tussle with 
Horatio and Marcellus, and before he had fully recovered 
from the shock, which that dreadful revelation had brought 
upon him. Yet, between the present scene and the one in 
which Polonius forbade his daughter to have further rela- 
tions with Hamlet, either in person or by letter, some days 
must be supposed to intervene. During this period, Hamlet 
more than once tried to meet Ophelia, and only after his 
visits were repeatedly declined, and his letters rejected, did 
he make the unannounced call. It was not, as is often sup- 
posed, the occasion of his first display of madness ; Claudius 
and Polonius were already aware of his "antic disposition"; 
the former, from anxiety to discover its cause, had sent for 
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern ; and the latter now ascribed 
it to the "ecstacy of love." 

[171] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actii. 

Since Hamlet's dementia was, therefore, already ru- 
mored through the court, he must in this visit act in harmony 
with his role. Accordingly, though strong in the sense of 
honor and unchanged in his affection, he assumes a semblance 
of rudeness, which, because unusual to his refined nature, 
would the more readily confirm all in their notion of his 
madness. In his present grief and mental state of high ex- 
citement, he had little need of effort to sustain his new role in 
the scene with Ophelia. If his anguish of mind and heart is 
pictured in piteous looks that speak of horrors ; if his over- 
whelming emotions of soul reacting outwardly in the pallor 
of his face, in the tremor of his limbs, and in inability of 
speech, prompt Ophelia to suppose him insane, it will, if she 
prove untrue, confirm the court in the assumption of his real 
madness. His present overwrought feeling is, however, real 
and unfeigned. Immersed in a sea of misery, wherein he 
sees the wreck of his life with all his former hopes and pur- 
poses, he is determined by one supreme struggle to snatch, 
if possible, his one only love from the floating wreckage. 

He approaches Ophelia with emotions beyond expression. 
He seizes her wrist, and holding her at arm's length, scans 
her countenance, which was so long accustomed to beam upon 
him with the bright light of affection. His eyes aglow with 
excitement, he gazes in earnest and bewildering looks to read 
her secret soul, to discover there the truth of her love or 
perfidy. Long is that searching, fevered glance of his hungry 
eyes groping for truth ; he is seeking to solve the mystery of 
her strange conduct; seeking to discover if his idol is of a 
free noble nature or of a craven spirit ; seeking if truth beam 
in her eye, and reveal love, virtue, and loyalty; seeking with 
fond hope to find in her a sufficient largeness of soul to be 
made his one confidant in the dread secret which overwhelms 
his mind and heart, and, perhaps, by sympathy if not by 

[172] 



scene i. AN UNANNOUNCED VISITOR 

counsel, to aid him in the pursuit of his task. But, alas! 
poor Ophelia, astonished, amazed, and bewildered, sits im- 
passive, as if spellbound by hypnotic dream. She gazes with 
eyes wide open in vacant stare, and with parted lips remains 
unresponsive to the mute questionings of her afflicted lover. 
No discernment beams in her eyes, no throb of love seems 
to pulsate her heart, and from her lips escapes no sigh, nor 
word of sympathy, nor affection, nor explanation of her 
harsh conduct towards the Prince, who, all unconscious to 
her, is pleading in trembling agonizing emotion to retain 
her love. Need it seem strange, if he can utter no word, if 
his gestures betray his deep affliction at reading her soul, 
and finding there nothing to indicate her love and constancy ? 
Her confession of weakness and her inability to understand 
him, have confirmed his fears. With dumb amazement he drops 
her hand, and, retiring in silence, gives the sad and parting 
glance of a dying love, while uttering a ' ' sigh so piteous and 
profound as to shatter all his bulk and his being. ' ' His heart- 
rending departure was the farewell to his belief and trust in 
woman. His dead love shall awaken again, but only at her 
open grave. 

The very recent rumor of Hamlet's dementia had not 
yet reached Ophelia, and, in consequence, she, while much 
surprised at his conduct, does not ascribe it to madness. Her 
mind had been so held captive by his amazing action, looks, 
and gestures that she could not for the moment think or 
utter one questioning word to discover the deep import of 
their meaning. This was unfortunate for both; for it wid- 
ened the breach, and made it permanent between them. 
Hamlet, under the impulse of love, had until this visit hoped 
against hope, and battled against suspicion; but when her 
conduct had exposed most sadly her lack of native vigor, of 
mental discernment, and of energy of will, he felt his fond 

[173] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actii. 

hope of making her a silent partner in the one sole project 
of his. life, to be completely shattered by the weakness of her 
character. He had dreamed of somehow saving her at least 
from the awful ruin that was sure to follow upon the accom- 
plishment of his sworn " revenge. " 

OPHELIA REVEALS A SECRET 

When immediately upon Hamlet 's departure, Ophelia in 
complete bewilderment had hastened to her father to de- 
scribe the painful scene, the old chancellor, who prided him- 
self on having for every effect some ready cause at hand, 
could see in the Prince 's conduct nothing but madness — mad- 
ness for Ophelia 's love. Whatever may have been his astute- 
ness in palmier days, his boasted craftiness was, at least in 
his dotage, always seen to set him on the wrong scent. For 
a moment he philosophizes on Hamlet's ecstasy of love, 
which, because one of the most potent passions that affect 
human nature, often leads, when thwarted, to rash and despe- 
rate undertakings. He expresses with deep conceit his regret 
at the harsh commands, which he had given his daughter, 
and which had caused this madness of 'ecstatic' love. 

Polonius was inevitably doomed to misunderstand Ham- 
let 's character. Blind to his nobility of mind and lofty moral 
nature, he was unable to comprehend and appreciate the 
ethical principles which were the mainspring of his actions. 
He could, in consequence, only judge his conduct according 
to the less noble norms he knew, and these alone ruled his 
little world of selfish interests. By vilifying Hamlet, traduc- 
ing his honor, and debasing his honest motives, he had 
blighted Ophelia's love; but now, as a pendulum, he swings 
to the opposite extreme, and, in the vanity of parental pride, 
readily admits the reality of the Prince's love — a love genu- 
ine, honorable, and unbounded ; such a love alone could drive 

[174] 



scene i. OPHELIA'S SECRET 

Hamlet to his present desperation. Too late he regrets that, 
from lack of observation and of judgment, he had mistaken 
fatherly fears for facts. Blaming his jealousy and confessing 
to Ophelia his want of discretion, he excuses it on the plea 
that old men are too often overmatched by excessive pru- 
dence, as youth are by want of foresight and reflection. 

This salve applied to his conscience in easement of his 
rash and dishonorable judgment, he hurries off with his 
daughter to the King, rejoicing in the characteristic astute- 
ness, which had enabled him to discover before all others 
the secret for which the king and his court were eagerly 
searching — the cause of Hamlet 's madness. The concealment 
of the Prince 's secret love for his daughter, might bring evil 
on himself, while its revealment, though rousing the displeas- 
ure of Hamlet, will surely merit the favor of the King. The 
latter is to him far weightier in the scales than the former. 



[175] 



SCENE SECOND 

THE SUMMONS OF HAMLET'S YOUNG FRIENDS 

In the meanwhile Hamlet, having by his antic disposition 
impressed on all the apparent trnth of his unbalanced mind, 
was now the one topic at the royal court. His madness was 
the sole question which every one discussed. However much 
they differed as to the cause of his sudden malady, all agreed 
on the fact — all save the King. A guilty conscience made 
him more alert and a still keener observer. His suspicion 
was excited by Hamlet's change as manifested, not so much 
by his external "transformation", as by his conduct towards 
himself. In the belief that his crime was known to himself 
and to God alone, Claudius had hitherto thought himself im- 
mune from danger; but his restless conscience, now stirred 
anew, urged him to ascertain the cause of the Prince's 
changed behavior. It might perhaps be Hamlet's disap- 
pointed ambition of the throne; it might be — a thing he 
greatly feared — that he had obtained some information con- 
cerning the murder. In either case he might plot or conspire 
in the guise of a madman, and become a menace to himself 
and the realm. Hence, there arose at once a conflict between 
Claudius and the Prince, in which the former set to work 
the machinery of the state in an endeavor to penetrate the 
heart of Hamlet's secret, and the latter to defend it securely 
behind an impenetrable mask. 

To aid him in his purpose, the King hastily summons 
two young courtiers, Rosencrantz and Guildernstern. He 
greets them warmly and explains the reason for their call. 
Young Hamlet, their friend, having undergone a transforma- 

[176] 



scene ii. HAMLET'S YOUNG FRIENDS 

tion, is neither the same "exterior nor inward man" that he 
was. Though his surprising malady is commonly ascribed 
to excessive grief over his father's death, there is reason to 
suspect some other and secret cause. Hence, he desires them, 
as intimates of the same age and humor with the Prince, to 
dwell for a time in the royal palace, where, in daily associa- 
tion with him, they may distract him from his grief, draw 
him on to pleasures and amusements, and, from their frequent 
conversations, learn if there be anything beyond his father's 
death to account for his exterior and especially for his "in- 
ward transformation," which is most noted in his changed 
conduct towards himself. 

The secret purpose of Claudius, which lay concealed be- 
neath his business-like and formal speech, was of course un- 
suspected by the Queen. She in turn, impelled alone by 
motherly solicitude, addresses the young courtiers in more 
impassioned and urgent terms. She knew them better than 
her consort did, knew them intimately and felt for them a 
motherly affection, for from childhood they had been brought 
up with her son, had probably served in boyhood as pages 
in the court of the elder Hamlet, and later had been his 
schoolmates. Her son, she assures them, still entertains for 
them the strongest friendship, and has often made them the 
subject of conversation with her. Appealing, therefore, not 
only to their good will as loyal courtiers, but more to the 
memory of the strong love which bound them so long in 
friendship, she earnestly requests them under promises of her 
royal favor to tax their ingenuity in efforts to discover the 
secret trouble of her "too much changed son." 

She had at first attributed his melancholy solely to an 
overmastering grief over his father 's death ; but his present 
conduct, which, all unknown to her, results from his secret 
knowledge of the crime of Claudius, and from his dark and 

[177] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act ii. 

gruesome suspicion concerning her own greater or less com- 
plicity therein, makes the supposition seem inadequate to ex- 
plain his changed action towards the King, and even more 
towards herself. In reply, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern with 
true courtly style bow their acknowledgment of the royal 
favor, and, protesting that their sovereigns' pleasure is 
always a command, place themselves in obedient service at 
their feet. The Queen in eagerness at once commands an 
attendant to lead them to her son, and Guildenstern depart- 
ing invokes the aid of Heaven to make their sojourn and 
service most agreeable and salutary for the Prince. 

POLONIUS INTRODUCES THE AMBASSADORS 

When last seen, Polonius was hurrying away to court 
to announce his great discovery. On reflection he perceived 
that if the cause of Hamlet's dementia should reach the 
King from other sources than himself, his silence might 
result in serious consequences. The King might reasonably 
suspect that from a spirit of ambition he had encouraged the 
courtship of the Prince, and only now revealed it when it was 
no longer in his power to conceal it. Under these circum- 
stances, Polonius was glad to meet the ambassadors who had 
just returned from Norway, and were awaiting an audience 
with the King. Fortunately, their mission was highly suc- 
cessful ; and their joyous news would surely put his majesty 
in the best of humor. The moment seemed, accordingly, the 
most opportune for Polonius, and, detaining the ambassadors 
without, he hastens to the royal presence to be the first to 
announce the glad tidings. 

Graciously received by Claudius and congratulated as 
1 ' the father of good news, ' ' he further ingratiates himself by 
the strong affirmation that he holds his duty as he does his 
soul, both to God and his ''gracious King." This loyal 

[178] 



scene ii. THE AMBASSADORS 

protestation is in the whole drama the sole disclosure of the 
minister 's acquaintance with Christian principles. His words 
affirming a dual allegiance on the part of man, the one due 
to God and the other to the King, voice a truth which is a 
fundamental principle of the Christian religion. It was first 
proclaimed by the Savior in the world-famous dictum: 
"Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God 
the things that are God's." 

Considering the portrayal of Polonius' character, we 
may readily believe that, as a time-serving courtier who 
would serve his King better than his God, we need not 
suppose that, while he admitted the existence of the dual 
power of Church and State, he was much concerned with the 
interests of the former, but merely invoked the principle, in 
order to gain by a courtly compliment the good will of his 
sovereign. 

On learning of the purpose of his minister's visit, the 
King is no less anxious to hear the secret than Polonius is to 
disclose it. The latter delays in the hope that his news shall 
be as a dessert "to the great feast" which the ambassadors 
will serve in the letter from Norway's King. Desirous of 
making the most of his great discovery, the minister insists 
on awaiting the more opportune moment when Claudius in 
the best of humor shall be more inclined to grant him a 
lengthy private audience. The Queen, however, seems little 
concerned with Polonius' boasted discovery; because, she 
still clings to the opinion that her son's malady is due to 
great grief and to her overhasty marriage. 

Following the exit of Polonius, the ambassadors Vol- 
timand and Cornelius enter, and are warmly greeted by Clau- 
dius. He had sent them on a special embassy to the King of 
Norway with letters of protest against the military prepara- 
tions of his nephew, the young Fortinbras. The latter was 

[179] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actii. 

levying troops ostensibly for an attack on Poland, but in 
reality for an invasion of Denmark, with the view of regain- 
ing the territory that had been won by the elder Hamlet. 
On learning of his nephew's design, the aged and infirm mon- 
arch rebuked him, and caused him to enter into a solemn 
compact of peace with Denmark. He allowed him, however, 
to lead his new levies against the hostile Polacks, and by 
letter requests of Claudius that he grant them a free and 
peaceful passage through Danish territory. The King com- 
pliments his ambassadors on their success in averting the 
impending war, and, in dismissing them, gives a token of 
his good will, by inviting them to feast with him that same 
evening. The low morals of Claudius are again emphasized 
by showing how he seizes on every incident as an excuse for 
indulging his evil habit of revelry and carousal. 

A DISCOVERY 

During the interview of the ambassadors, Polonius with- 
drew to the ante-chamber, where in anxiety he was mentally 
rehearsing the speech by which he hoped to impress upon 
Claudius his acumen and keen foresight. At the exit of Vol- 
timand and Cornelius, he hastens with evident eagerness into 
the royal presence to communicate his fortunate discovery. 
With a self-conceit no less ludicrous than his late effusion of 
loyalty to the criminal usurper, he begins his well prepared 
speech, in which, preferring, as usual, the devious to the 
direct, he prefaces the simple fact of his discovery by many 
high sounding and euphuistic phrases. At the manifest im- 
patience of the royal pair, he quotes the saw, "brevity is 
the soul of wit, ' ' and yet, unmindful of either, runs on heap- 
ing meaningless phrase on phrase, until the Queen, in rest- 
less irritation at his speaking so airily and glibly of her son's 
malady, attempts to stay his stream of words by the tart 

[180] 



scene ii. A DISCOVERY 

command, "more matter with less art." The old man, how- 
ever, undaunted and unheeding, merely pauses to protest 
against all art and, after promising to be brief, runs on as 
before in meandering flow, babbling like the brimming 
brooklet. At the close of his set speech, he produces with an 
air of assured triumph the Prince's love-letter to Ophelia. 
However much Ophelia may have shrunk from betraying 
a secret, she had with docility delivered up the letter to her 
father, who now offers it to Claudius in positive proof of his 
theory that Hamlet's madness is due to love for his daugh- 
ter. This letter offered as evidence is indeed a strange 
document. Though it bears no date, we may reasonably 
assume that it was recent, and in fact written after his re- 
peated failures to see Ophelia, and after he had begun to 
enact the role of madman. Its oddity and crudity of form, 
irrespective of the underlying sentiments, though wholly un- 
worthy of a man of Hamlet's attainments, are however, in 
perfect consonance with his present presumably mad condi- 
tion. A certain philosopher has said that the passion of love 
is a madness. His dictum seems approved by many instances 
of amatory missives which, preserved to posperity, rouse in 
the reader either sentiments of pity or amusement. No man 
had a deeper and more extensive knowledge of human nature 
than Shakespeare, and his seems to have been the view of the 
philosopher : 

' ' Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, 
Such shaping fantasies, ,that apprehend 
More than cool reason ever comprehends. 
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, 
Are of imagination all compact. " 

(Midsum. Night's Dream V. 1.) 

If, therefore, the dramatist couples lovers with lunatics, 
we see why he caused Hamlet, who wished to be deemed mad, 

[181] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act ii. 

to pen a letter characteristic of a lunatic lover. Already 
enacting the madman at court, the Prince saw the need of 
consistent action. He perceived that Ophelia's repulse of his 
love might readily be made the apparent cause of his dis- 
turbance of mind, and even offer a plausible reason for the 
madness he assumes. For him it was of supreme importance, 
to have the rumor of his madness believed and propagated, 
if he would attain his sworn resolve. He must, therefore, 
make his counterfeit madness appear most specious, for men 
believe the extraordinary more readily, when they see some 
apparent cause, which sufficiently explains it, and such a 
cause they would see in his mad love-letter. 

Hamlet, moreover, had another purpose in view. Aware 
that Polonius was responsible for Ophelia's conduct, and also 
that he was guilty of aspersing his character and of malign- 
ing his honorable intentions, he was in fear lest the daughter 
should believe the defamatory words of her father, and, in 
consequence, he decided to enter a protest by means of a 
letter which, while expressing his deep grief and supreme 
love, he would make incoherent in thought, and couch in a 
form crude and grotesque, with the hope that on the one 
hand, Ophelia would read therein his strong sentiments of 
love and distress, and on the other, her father, into whose 
hands it would surely fall, would hold it as a firm proof of 
his unbalanced mind. Hence, he signs it, as seen in the First 
Quarto, ' Thine ever the most unhappy Prince Hamlet. ' Such 
was the letter which Polonius was now reading and com- 
menting upon at court. In the fond conceit of being no com- 
mon connoisseur of literary merit, he was unable to restrain 
the impulse to pause here and there in criticism of some word 
or phrase. One which displeased him much was the term 
"the most beautified Ophelia". "Beautified," he says, "is 
an ill, a vile phrase." — His daughter's use of cosmetics is 

[182] 



scene ii. A RUSE 

again referred to in a later scene, when Hamlet says : ' ' God 
has given you one face and you make yourself another." 
The King, however, and his minister were both in happy 
humor, and the latter more concerned with setting himself 
right in the eyes of his master, gave little thought to the 
Queen's strong affection and motherly sympathy for her dis- 
tracted son, and, in consequence, was unconscious of the 
offence he was giving her, not only by making public without 
her son's authority a secret letter which he had surrepti- 
tiously obtained, but also by his flippant criticism and slight- 
ing remarks, which exposed her afflicted son to ridicule in 
the eyes of the court. Suppressing her irritated feelings, 
Gertrude, after casting doubt on the old man's veracity by 
questioning the genuineness of the letter, turns to leave the 
unpleasant scene. Polonius, however, in surprise and alarm 
stays her by exclaiming in humble tone, ' ' good madam, stay 
awhile; I will be faithful." True to his word, he proceeds 
demurely to read the letter through without further comment 
or criticism. 

A RUSE 

The ruse of Hamlet worked to perfection ; the conclusion 
which Polonius drew from the letter, and his report to the 
court were precisely what the Prince had foreseen and de- 
sired. If as yet no adequate cause had been assigned for 
his new affliction, now all would believe that the letter was 
clear evidence of the nature of his malady, and this belief 
would aid him to guard his own secret. If the King was 
not deceived like his court by the theory of Polonius, it was 
because, unbiased by fatherly pride and armed with secret 
knowledge, he had reason to distrust his chancellor's diag- 
nosis. Prompted by this distrust, he cross-questioned him on 
the one point of interest : how did Ophelia receive his love ? 

[183] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actii. 

Did she encourage his courtship? These were questions 
which Polonius most feared, and for the avoidance of which 
he had hastened to the court with Hamlet's letter. The 
King's questions manifestly nettled him; they seemed to 
imply ambition on his part, and a consequent neglect of duty 
in failing to nip in the bud the flowering love of his daughter. 

It appeared evident to Claudius that, if Ophelia had not 
encouraged the Prince, his love would not have grown to 
such proportions. In reply, the old minister warmly protests 
his fidelity to the King and to his own honor, and to set him- 
self in the most favorable light, resorts to pure fabrication, 
in which, according to his usual boasted omniscience, he 
claims to have discovered by his own sagacity, the intrigue 
of the young lovers, and at once to have thwarted their at- 
xempted misalliance ; and all because he knew that, according 
to the custom of the realm, the Lord Hamlet was a prince 
out of line with his daughter. In consequence of his inter- 
meddling action, he confidently assures the King, Hamlet 
fell into his present madness. The humor of the situation is 
intensified by the old man's positive adherence to his theory, 
and by the ridicule which he draws upon himself unwittingly 
by proffering for reality, an imaginary process of Hamlet's 
dementation. His speech reaches its climax when he boasts 
how, no less than a most skilful physician, he had noted the 
progressive steps in its development. 

How plausible soever the story of the minister might 
seem, it failed to convince Claudius. His strong expression 
of persevering doubt puzzled and pained Polonius. The lat- 
ter, in his imaginary infallibility always felt irritation at any 
questioning doubt after he had once pronounced his judg- 
ment ; and, therefore, from ruffled feelings he bruskly appeals 
to his record, and boldly challenges Claudius to recall, if 
he can, one occasion when his ipse dixit proved false. But he 

[184] 



scene ii. AN UNWELCOME VISITOR 

is only further roused by the King's non-committal reply; 
and in protest he offers to stake his life on the correctness of 
his theory. Truth can not escape him; he will find it even 
though it be hidden in the centre of the earth. When the 
King, however, still continuing to doubt, proposes a further 
test for proof of the claim of his minister, Polonius gladly 
promises to bring the lovers together in a secret meeting. 
So confident is he of his diagnosis of Hamlet's malady that 
he again boldly challenges the King : 

"If he love her not, 
And be not from his reason fall'n thereon, 
Let me be no assistant for a state, 
But keep a farm and carters.' ' 

AN UNWELCOME VISITOR 

An opportunity for the test was offered sooner than ex- 
pected. Hamlet was known "to walk sometimes for hours 
together in the lobby;" and at such a time Polonius proposes 
to ' ' let loose his daughter to him, ' ' and he and Claudius, con 
cealed behind the mural tapestries, can espy the "encounter" 
of the lovers. If the test prove his theory of Hamlet's mad- 
ness false, then the chancellor is willing, as was seen, to be 
deposed from office and return to humble peasant life. While 
he was thus addressing the King, the Queen, on gazing 
through the open portal, observed her son approaching, and 
exclaimed : "Look where sadly the poor wretch comes read- 
ing. ' ' Instantly the old minister hurries away the royal pair, 
and, while pointing in excitement towards Hamlet, affirms 
with confidence, "I'll board him presently." 

Pausing for some moments, he watches the Prince, who, 
slowly promenading up and down the lobby, seems all ab- 
sorbed in the perusal of a book of satire. As he approaches, 
Polonius bowing deferentially begs leave to interrupt his 

[185] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act ii. 

reading. The Prince, surprised at the intrusion of the unwel- 
come visitor, exclaims in weariness of soul, "well, God-a- 
mercy. ' ' Such a prayer uttered without premeditation and, 
as it were from habit, is a characteristic of Hamlet 's practical 
Christian faith. 

The humorous dialogue which follows bristles with keen 
wit, as now in irony and now in satire, the old angler is lashed 
with secret stings ; but he seemingly disregards them, because 
of his firm belief in the Prince 's madness. Aware of his illu- 
sion, Hamlet seeks to confirm him the more therein, and this 
was an easy task, since it required only an exaggerated 
expression of thoughts and feelings. His dislike for Polonius 
was but natural, and would have caused antagonism even 
under other circumstances. Their natures were cast in dif- 
ferent moulds. Hamlet 's love of truth and virtue, and of the 
direct and open paths of honesty, engendered an insufferable 
antipathy for the shallowness and falsehood of the superan- 
nuated statesman, who gloried in devious and crooked ways, 
and in the cunning of questionable diplomacy. Small, there- 
fore, was the provocation ordinarily required to rouse him 
to hostile action against a character so opposite. But Hamlet 
found other elements of aversion in the fact that Polonius, as 
the chief minister of state, had intrigued for the succession 
of Claudius to the crown; had prompted his uncle's inces- 
tuous marriage with his mother ; had maligned his honorable 
motives, tainted his good name, and slanderously blighted the 
love of Ophelia, whom he distrustingly immured: and this 
man even now, unaware of his foolhardiness and senility, 
comes in shambling dotage on a mission from Claudius to 
thrust upon him his unwelcome presence from anxiety to pry 
into his affairs, and snatch a sacred secret from his inmost 
heart. Pitiless, therefore, is Hamlet's onslaught. With no 
attempt to conceal his aversion for the favorite minister of 

[186] 



scene ii. AN UNWELCOME VISITOR 

the criminal usurper, he taunts and humiliates him ; he wor- 
ries and dumbfounds him ; he dubs him a fish -monger, angling 
for his secret, — a fishmonger of slanderous talk and weari- 
some loquacity; he charges him with dishonesty, insinuates 
a shameful aspersion of his character, and ironically ap- 
proves the immuring of his daughter. "Let her not walk in 
the sun; She is in danger of seduction; friend, look to it!" 
Let her not bask in the sunshine of princely favors, nor asso- 
ciate with those possessed of good and virtuous principles. 

From the charge of dishonesty which Hamlet makes 
against Polonius, he proceeds to generalization, in which he 
employs the metaphor of the sun, "the god kissing carrion." 
Though this clause be commonly found obscure, Warburton's 
comment upon it seems the most acceptable. "This strange 
passage," he says, "seems to contain as great and sublime a 
reflection as any the Poet puts in the mouth of his hero 
throughout the whole Play." From the illative conjunction 
for, we learn that Hamlet is reasoning from what he had said 
to Polonius a few moments before, "To be honest as this 
world goes, is to be one picked out of ten thousand. ' ' This 
utterance leads him by a chain of ideas to reflect upon the 
argument which libertines bring against Divine Providence 
from the circumstance of abounding evil. By his next words 
he, therefore, endeavors to answer that objection, and to vin- 
dicate Providence on the supposition that almost all men are 
wicked. He argues: Why wonder at this abounding evil? 
The Sun breeds maggots in a dead dog; for the sun, though a 
god, sheds its heat and influence upon carrion. 

Here Hamlet stops short in his reasoning, lest, talking 
too logically, he might lead Polonius to suspect his madness 
to be feigned, and so he suddenly turns him off from the 
subject by a question concerning his daughter. The inference 
which he intended to make was a very noble one and to this 

[187] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act ii. 

purpose: if then it be true that the effect produced be in 
accordance with the nature of a thing operated upon, (which 
is carrion,) and not according to the cause operating (which 
is a god), why need we wonder that the supreme Cause of all 
things diffusing His blessings on mankind — which dead in 
original sin, is as it were carrion — man instead of a proper 
return of duty, should breed only corruption and vice. 

This same thought occurs in Measure for Measure, 
though in slightly varied form, because applied to a differ- 
ent subject: 

"But it is I, 

That lying by the violet in the sun, 

Do as the carrion does, not as the flow'r 

Corrupt with virtuous season." (II. 2. 165.) 

The fact that rays of the same sun produce strangely dif- 
ferent effects upon the violet and the carrion, naturally re- 
calls the philosophic principle as voiced by the Angelic Doc- 
tor, " Whatever is received, is received according to the nature 
of the recipient. 23 Such then is the argument at length, and 
it is as noble a one in behalf of Divine Providence as could 
come from the schools of divinity. The sentiment too is 
altogether in harmony with Hamlet's character, for he is 
perpetually moralizing along the line of Christian princi- 
ples; and his reflections naturally arise from his circum- 
stances. 

Totally bewildered by Hamlet's enigmatic words, Polo- 
nius gladly turns to the first ray of light, which comes at the 
allusion to his daughter. In it, he sees further proof of his 
theory, and adds new humor to the scene, when, by an aside, 
he takes the audience into his confidence, and grows remi- 
niscent of his own younger days : 

23 "Quidquid recipitur, secundum modum recipientis recipitur". 

[188] 



scene ii. IN PRISON 

"And when I was young, I was very idle, 
And suffered much ecstasy in love, very near this. " 

(1st. Quarto) 

Feeling himself baffled and even worsted in the first 
attempt, he is urged by wounded vanity to fish again; but 
Hamlet, turning from his book to plague him with new stings 
in the guise of the "satirical rogue," whose work he is sup- 
posed to be reading, accuses him of slander, and in running 
satire lampoons him as an old dotard with "a pitiful lack 
of wit," and as usual closes the sally with a phrase which 
will appear foolish to Polonius : "You yourself, sir, should be 
as old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward." 
Smarting under the lash of satire, and puzzled at Hamlet's 
apparent method and his apt replies, the old minister ex- 
plains them to his own satisfaction by the reflection that 
madmen are known at times to utter perchance the wisest 
words of wisdom. 

Hamlet's iteration at the leave-taking of Polonius is 
evidently employed for the purpose of encouraging belief 
in his insanity; such iteration is acknowledged as one of 
the marks of mental derangement, and is never adopted by 
Hamlet, save when conversing with distrusted persons. It 
is an ironical iteration most profoundly pathetic, a triple 
wail, which, revealing his utter weariness of life, wins our 
sympathy, and causes us to realize the slightness of the pain 
inflicted on the "tedious old fool" in comparison with the 
torture he himself is suffering in mind and heart. 

IN PRISON 

Polonius hastily retiring in a feeling of discomfiture, 
runs against Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as they enter the 
lobby. Officiously informing them of the purpose of their 
coming, he points back to Hamlet, while exclaiming "there 

[189] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act ii. 

he is, ' ' and then hastens away chuckling at the thought of the 
fate awaiting them. The Prince had not seen the two for 
many a day, and receives them graciously, and even greets 
them warmly, as his excellent friends — ''The good lads" who 
are neither the button on Fortune 's cap, nor the soles of her 
shoes. The two are perfect counterparts, and offer much 
amusement, for the one usually echoes the idea of the other. 
The only news they bring is the rumor "that the world has 
grown honest. ' ' The statement startles Hamlet. He is sure 
of the contrary. If it be honest now, what bad fortune has 
sent them to prison? To him the world with its many con- 
fines, wards, and dungeon is a prison, and of all, the worst 
is Denmark. 

The expression reveals his inmost feelings. During his 
father's reign virtue ruled at court, and life seemed full of 
joy and sunshine; but all was changed when evil had en- 
throned itself at Elsinore. The court was Hamlet's narrow 
world, which he confounded with the outer world of Den- 
mark. Hence, when by the ghostly revelation he became con- 
scious of the fact that his paradise of joy and bliss was 
invaded by a hateful criminal, and befouled by gross moral 
evils, his much "thinking" upon these secret and appalling 
crimes, made Denmark seem to him a loathsome prison; "for 
there is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so." 

This dictum of Hamlet, when quoted apart from the 
text which explains its meaning, easily lends itself to misin- 
terpretation, and is in fact sometimes applied in a sense ut- 
terly at variance with what the Prince had in mind. 2 * His 
words are especially pleasing to Rationalists and other non- 
Christian men whose theories expel the Creator from His 

24 A similar maxim, "To the clean all things are clean", (Titus, 1, 15), is no 
less often sophistically invoked by the purient and lascivious toi mask or 
excuse their evil disposition. 

[190] 



scene ii. A TWOFOLD NORM 

own universe and annul His moral law. 25 Unwilling to admit 
the existence of God and religion, and the consequent moral 
obligations, they are driven to invent some ethical code 
which, independently of a Supreme Being, will meet the exig- 
encies of social life. They hold that there is no radical differ- 
ence between good and bad, between vice and virtue; and 
that the distinction commonly assumed is purely conventional 
and dependent upon the human will. Hence, as the basis of 
their ethics, some invoke public opinion, others, civil legis- 
lation; some, private or public utility, and others dream 
similar vain dreams. 

Though these dreamers claim Hamlet as a con-disciple, 
by reason of his saying: "There is nothing good or bad, but 
thinking makes it so/' their claim is far from legitimate. 
His dictum, if assumed as an ethical principle, must in jus- 
tice be interpreted in harmony with the moral principles 
which Shakespeare and his hero both professed. Neither the 
one nor the other admitted the dreams of our modern theo- 
rists, but, on the contrary, held emphatically a radical dis- 
tinction between vice and virtue, and between actions good 
and bad; and this distinction did not depend on man's free 
will, which is mutable, whereas the moral principles of the 
Poet and his hero are the immutable truths of Christianity. 

A TWOFOLD NORM 

Shakespeare 's philosopher acknowledges a twofold norm 
of human actions, the one remote and the other proximate ; 
the latter is internal and subjective, and is called conscience, 
the former is external and objective, and is called the natural 

25 "Man as considered by positivists and pantheists, is supreme and absolutely 
independent. There is no ruler above him who controls him by laws, no 
deity distinct from the universe, no omniscient and infinitely just being 
that holds him responsible for his actions. He is distinct from the brute, 
not in kind, but in degree only". — "Data of Modern Ethics Examined", 
John J. Ming, S. J., p. 26. 

[191] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act ii. 

law, which is nothing more than a reflex of the eternal law 
of God. This eternal law is the supreme ordination laid 
down by God's wisdom, according to which He directs all 
creatures rational and irrational to their respective ends. 
Everything in the world is, in consequence, subject to this 
eternal law. It is stamped on the material world by the so- 
called laws of nature ; it is impressed on the animal world in 
the various instincts by which animals are governed, and 
whose promptings they blindly follow ; and it radiates in the 
soul of man by means of the first principles of the natural 
law, which are proposed to him for the guidance of his will. 1 
These are fundamental principles of Christian morality. 
But Hamlet's words, if considered as a moral maxim, are in 
violent opposition. Such opposition cannot, therefore, be 
admitted save on the ground that, as a Christian, he either 
fell unwittingly into an open contradiction of the most vital 
principle of Christian ethics, or was wholly ignorant of the 
most fundamental moral truth, taught by the religion he 
professed. The former supposition is too extravagant and 
even incredible in a man of Hamlet 's intellectual attainments 

1 The natural law is a participation of the eternal law, communicated to man 
by the light of reason, and contains all precepts which arise from the 
necessary relation between God and man, and between men themselves. 
Eeason is not this natural law, but only manifests it to us. Reason, more- 
over, does not oblige us, but merely shows us the obligation. All this is 
affirmed by the testimony of reason, of conscience, and the universal con- 
sent of mankind. They proclaim that man recognizes and understands, as 
laws binding by nature, a certain number of moral principles which, 
emanating from the eternal law, are naturally known and assented to by the 
human mind, and according to which, reason, on the one hand, dis- 
tinguishes between good and evil, and conscience, on the other, commands 
or forbids certain actions according as they are in harmony or in discord 
with those principles. 

Reason, moreover, guided by these principles, judges that certain actions are 
by their nature intrinsically good, and others intrinsically bad; and that 
this distinction, because radical and intrinsic to the very nature of the ac- 
tion, can never be obliterated either on the part of man or on the part of 
God; for as God cannot effect that two and two make five, so neither can 
He effect that an act intrinsically evil become good, and vice versa. He 
cannot, therefore, cause religion, justice, and temperance to become vices; 
and impiety, injustice, and intemperance to become virtues. Hence the 
distinction between good and evil does not depend on free will, but, aris- 
ing from the very nature of the moral act itself, remains forever permanent. 
Right must be right, and wrong must be wrong, as long as God is God. 

[192] 



scene ii. A TWOFOLD NORM 

and moral culture ; the latter is negatived by superabundant 
proofs in the drama itself. If accepting the moral law of 
God, as emphasized in the decalogue when he said : " 0, that 
the Everlasting had not fixed His canon against self -slaugh- 
ter," Hamlet proved himself a Christian who knew that, 
howsoever much he desired death, no amount of thinking 
could make evil good, or justify a suicidal act ; if he battled 
conscientiously throughout the drama for the right against 
the wrong, faithful, in a continuous conflict, to the injunc- 
tion of his ghostly father, "taint not thy soul"; if he hark- 
ened to a voice which his much thinking could not stifle — 
the voice of conscience — which distinguishing good from 
evil, enjoins the one and forbids the other; it was all, be- 
cause he accepted the Christian code of morals, and recog- 
nized the natural law of God, which dictates that moral good 
is differentiated from moral evil so radically and intrinsic- 
ally, and so independently of human will and thought, that 
rational creatures neither individually nor collectively, can 
under any circumstance or for any purpose make good evil, 
and evil good. 

Gervinus, a Positivist, nevertheless, writes on the words 
of Hamlet: "Virtue and vice and good and bad actions ac- 
quire their real importance from the circumstances, aims, 
and natural character of the men, that it is not the What 
but the How that decides the value of an action." These 
words show how loose are the views of non-Christian com- 
mentators when touching on the moral character of a 
Christian Hamlet. Contrary to Gervinus, every Christian 
holds that the what, or the thing done, though it may be 
modified by aims and circumstances, is, nevertheless, the 
great primal factor in determining the goodness or the bad- 
ness of a moral act. If the what, or the thing done be in itself 
bad, as is injustice or impiety, no intention or circumstance 

[193] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actii. 

can justify it, or make it morally good. Every Christian, 
therefore, maintains, Gervinus notwithstanding, that willful 
murder can never be made an action morally good by reason 
of "the circumstances, or aims, or character of the man" 
who perpetrates the crime. 

The unbeliever who would wish to read into Hamlet's 
words a moral and anti-Christian maxim, must face an over- 
powering opposition, which confronts him at every point of 
the primal action of the drama. Hamlet's words, in conse- 
quence, must have another meaning, which is in harmony 
with his pronounced Christian principles. What that mean- 
ing is, becomes evident, if his words be read, not apart, but in 
connection with the text. When the young courtiers affirm 
that they do not think Denmark a prison, Hamlet to the 
contrary thinks it is; and these contradictory opinions he 
assigns, not to the object of thought, but to the person whose 
subjective thinking is affected by his mental condition of 
joy or sorrow. These conditions differed in Hamlet and his 
young friends; to the latter, Denmark was still the same, 
but to the former, it seemed a prison, because his mental 
vision was now colored by his secret knowledge, and a conse- 
quent grief of mind and heart. Once, like them he thought 
his native land the brightest spot on earth, but now under 
changed conditions, when his mind is troubled by affliction, 
all things seem tinged with darker hues and colors. Of this 
he himself complains : "I have of late lost all my mirth, — 
earth seems to me a sterile promontory, ' ' — and the sky ' ' a 
pestilential congregation of vapors. ' ' 

"All seem infected that the infected spy; 
As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye." 

It is clear that Hamlet 's mind and heart were infected by 
his griefs and sufferings, and that, from much "thinking," 

[194] 



scene ii. KING AND BEGGAR 

and reflecting, and brooding over them, he fell into a deep 
and troubled melancholy, which changed him from a happy 
optimist into a most confirmed pessimist. Hence, formerly, 
when under favorable conditions, his life was pleasant, he 
thought Denmark a palace; but now, when under adverse 
circumstances his life is miserable, he thinks the same Den- 
mark is a prison. Therefore, it appears evident that, far 
from uttering any moral maxim either in the abstract or in 
the concrete, he only wishes to express his own subjective 
mood of mind and feelings after passing from joyous sun- 
shine into a seeming hopeless gloom of adversity. 

KING AND BEGGAR 

At court the belief was common that "Hamlet's transfor- 
mation" was chiefly due to his failure of succession to the 
throne. When, therefore, Rosencrantz adopting this opinion, 
ascribes his melancholy to disappoioted ambition, he replies 
in terms that exhibit his philosophic temperament: though 
bodily imprisoned in the narrowest cell, he would still, free 
of spirit, be king of unconfined space to roam in fancy over 
earth and sea. To a philosopher 

' ' Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage ; 
Minds innocent and quiet take that for a hermitage." 

If Denmark seem a prison, it is no hermitage; for though 
innocent of soul, Hamlet is troubled night and day by dis- 
quieting dreams, dreams of his abhorrent life at court, where 
he must mingle in the company of the foul murderer, and 
seemingly condone the disgraceful conduct of his mother; 
dreams of the bloody task to which he has solemnly sworn to 
devote his life, and which seems to grow the more hopeless, 
the more he contemplates it. 

Ignorant of the nature of his troubled dreams, and ac- 
[195] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actii. 

cepting the common belief concerning the cause of his melan- 
choly, his companions insist that ambition is a shadow and 
even a shadow's shadow. He refutes the supposition from 
their own words by a paradox which appears unintelligible 
to them. Making a comparison between shadow and sub- 
stance, which are correlated terms, he assumes a like con- 
trast to exist between king and beggar. From this idea of 
contrast, he reasons that, if lofty aims of ambition be nothing 
more than shadows which are cast only by bodies or sub- 
stances, it follows that, if the inflated ambition of a king be 
but a shadow, that shadow must be cast by a beggar ; since 
king and beggar are in like contrast with shadow and its 
substance. Hence, he concludes that a king is but a beggar's 
shadow, and, if this be so, why then, he asks, should his 
troubled dreams concern the loss of the crown. He curtly 
cuts short further parley by inviting the young courtiers to 
accompany him to court. 

A SECRET MISSION 

As soon as Hamlet began to play the madman, all eyes 
at court from the King to the lowest menial were upon him, 
some officially and some from curiosity. Claudius, prodded 
by a guilty conscience, had from caution commissioned trusted 
minions to attend on him and watch his every movement. 
Hamlet, however, from ignorance of the royal summons of 
the two courtiers and the secret purpose of their visit, had 
received them graciously, and even given them a hearty 
welcome; but their unusual offer to join his retinue, imme- 
diately aroused his suspicion, and with impassioned words he 
declined their unsolicited proposal, complaining that he is 
already most dreadfully attended. 

Acting on suspicion, he at once throws away all cere- 
[196] 



scene ii. LIKE AN ANGEL 

mony and, in the name of friendship, demands what brings 
them to Elsinore. He meets their nattering and equivocal 
reply by proffering them his poor thanks, which, because 
sincere, he deems too dear by far for their visit of suspected 
sincerity. Irritated by their evasions and their shufflings, he 
suddenly changes his manner, and, watching their every 
move and look, harries them with question upon question with 
an eager and terrible directness which allows no subterfuge. 
Under the fierce attack, the youths who are unskilled in the 
artifice of cunning and diplomacy, are confused and, betray- 
ing by guilty looks and nervous action the secret of their 
visit, are in fine, earnestly conjured by the memory of their 
former love and continued friendship to speak out the truth, 
and openly admit that the "good King and Queen have 
sent for them." 

Satisfied with their admission of being emissaries of 
Claudius, Hamlet saves them from betraying the royal secret ; 
for he himself forestalls them in the declaration of the purpose 
of their visit. He proceeds to explain his " transformation, ' ' 
by exposing his present miserable condition. Having lost of 
late his usual mirth and joyous spirits, he has abandoned all 
customary exercise, and, indeed, so thick is his mental gloom, 
and so leaden his heart that the earth itself seems but a 
sterile promontory, and its excellent canopy, the overhanging 
firmament with its majestic roof, fretted with fiery orbs, 
appears to be filled with foul and pestilential vapors. The 
cause of this apparent change of earth and sky, as well as 
of his own heart-sickness and melancholy, Hamlet conceals 
from his young friends by a mental reservation. 

HOW LIKE AN ANGEL 

After the description of his "transformation," Hamlet 
prevents any questioning concerning its cause by passing in 

[197] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actil 

a sudden though natural transition to the consideration of 
man, not indeed as he exists about him, but according to the 
abstract notion in which, as a philosopher, he was wont to con- 
ceive and contemplate him. In this idea, man by nature is not 
contaminated nor degraded to the level of the brute 
creation, but a rational being free from blurs and blotches, 
and endowed with perfections which exalt him to fellowship 
with angels, and ennoble him to the sonship of God. In a 
word, he contemplates the nature of man still untainted by sin, 
as it was on that first morn of life, when coming forth fresh 
and beautiful from the hand of the Creator. In wonder he 
exclaims, "What a piece of work is man!" He is truly the 
master-piece of our visible creation. Of him a later poet 
sings : 

" Since God collected and resumed in man, 
The firmaments, the strata and the light 
Fish, fowl, and beast and insect — all their trains 
Of various life caught back upon his arm, 
Reorganized and constituted man, 
The microcosm, the adding up of works." 

But Hamlet, a greater philosopher than Browning, be- 
held in man a greater microcosm, or epitome of all God's 
works; for the individual man, consisting of a distinct dual 
nature, the one a material body, and the other a spiritual 
soul, touches by the former on the animal creation, and by 
the latter on the angelic nature ; and therefore unites in him- 
self, not only the material and the visible, but also the spirit- 
ual and invisible world. The nobility of this microcosm, 
Hamlet admires in its intellectual soul, of which the royal 
prophet says: "The light of Thy countenance, Lord, is 
signed upon us." (Ps. 4, 7.) Its nobility is known from 
operations which, being immaterial and spiritual, clearly indi- 
cate their principle or cause. He, moreover, admires the 

[198] 



scene ii. LIKE AN ANGEL 

soul's intellectual faculty in its "infinity" of a twofold 
scope : spiritual by nature and, in consequence, unlimited by 
matter, it wanders beyond our material world, and, indepen- 
dent of space and time, soars to universal truths and the 
contemplation of things which, being of the invisible and 
immaterial order, lie beyond the horizon of mortal eye; "in- 
finite" again, he affirms, is the soul's intellectual "faculty," 
by reason of its object which is truth, all truth, even infinite 
truth, which is God Himself, with the sole proviso that it be 
properly proposed. 

This thought of man's intellectual action leads Hamlet 
to compare him to angels, and well he may with the warrant 
of Holy Writ : ' ' Thou hast made him a little less than the 
angels." 26 Of man he says, "in action how like an angel!" 
Actions of angels are, however, immaterial, because being 
without bodies, they are purely spiritual substances, which, 
endowed with intellect and free will, act independently of 
matter. Like angels, man by the spiritual faculty of his soul 
can rise above material things; like angels he can contem- 
plate higher truths of the invisible and spiritual world ; like 
angels he can by his spiritual faculty of free will spurn the 
material, perishable things of earth in his aspiration after the 
nobler, spiritual, and eternal good. 

If man be "in action like an angel," Hamlet affirms him 
to be, moreover, "in apprehension like a god." Apprehen- 
sion is properly an act of the intellectual faculty of the soul, 
which in its nature is spiritual like God. "Ye are Gods, and 
all of you the sons of the Most High," 27 has been said of man, 
because ' ' God created them according to His image. " 2 8 This 
image is man's soul, which by its threefold operation mirrors 
the unity of the Godhead in its Trinity of persons. If this 

26 Ps. 8, 6. — Heb. 2, 7. 

27 Ps. 81, 6. — Jno. 10, 34. 

28 Gen. I, 27. 

[199] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actii. 

image, the human soul, be by nature spiritual with no mate- 
rial elements ; if it be simple with no component parts, and in 
consequence indestructible, or immortal ; and if by its intel- 
lect it be inclined to all truth, and by its will determined to 
all good : it is because it reflects in some degree the infinite 
perfections of its uncreated Original. Well may Hamlet, 
therefore, call man "The beauty of the world." Beauty is 
perfection, and in man's dual nature culminate perfections, 
which make him King of our earthly palace, wherein by his 
rational powers he rules, "the paragon of animals.' ' "Thou 
hast crowned him with glory and honor, and hast set him 
over the works of thy hands." 29 

A CONTRAST 

Hamlet's exaltation of man, "in action like an angel 
and in apprehension like a god," strongly suggests its sorry 
contrast which is offered us by certain modern theorists who 
would degrade him from the dignity of a god to the base 
level of a more or less developed brute. Such iconoclasts 
will exist in every age, and, strange to say, will like ungrate- 
ful sons, labor to destroy that religion which by giving them 
a Christian civilization, has saved them from being born 
savages of a reverted barbarism. Of such the Wise man said 
of old, "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God," 30 
in his heart, because he willed it, and, therefore, the wish 
was father to the thought. Hence, the Lord abandons them 
to their evil will :" So I let them go according to the desires 
of their hearts, they shall walk in their own inventions." 31 
Of this same Scriptural fool, Lord Bacon makes the shrewd 



28 Ps. VIII, 6. — Heb. II, 7. 
3 Ps. XIII, 1. 
si Ps. LXXX, 13. 



[200] 



scene ii. A CONTRAST 

remark: "Deum non esse non credit, nisi cui Deum non esse 
expedit." 32 

Though as already noted, Shakespeare was far in ad- 
vance of his age, he does not seem to have grown to that 
degree of development which is required to class him with 
our modern innovators: he stands with vehemence for the 
nobler man against the descendants of the ape. If with us 
today, the Poet would scarce align his Hamlet, the phil- 
osopher, with the unthinking many who, feeding on novelty 
and sensationalism, out-Darwin Darwin, and in strange sim- 
plicity accept as facts what are only suppositions and un- 
proven theories. 33 "It is not science, but the deceptive pre- 
tence of science, which is responsible for most of the ideas 
popularly entertained concerning Darwinism. They are sedu- 
lously propagated by Rationalistic Press Associations, by 
reason of the obvious fact that the mass of men have an in- 
exhaustible capacity for swallowing assertions, however 
groundless, if only they are sensational and graphic." 34 
Against Darwinism in the nineteenth century have arisen 
many scientific luminaries of the first magnitude. Of its 
present status, Von Hartmann writes : 

"In the eighties, Darwin's influence was at its height, 
and exercised almost absolute control over technical re- 
search. In the nineties, for the first time, a few timid ex- 
pressions of doubt and opposition were heard, and these 
gradually swelled into a great chorus of voices, aiming at 

32 "A man believes God's non-existence only when God's non-existence is ex- 

pedient for him". 

33 Professor Fleischmann of Erlangen in his work on Darwinism declares that 

"The theory has not a single fact to confirm it in the realm of nature. It 

is not the result of scientific research, but purely the product of the 

imagination". 
Professor Driesch in a recent Gifford lecture affirms: 

"We do not know very much about evolution at all, — in this field we are 

just at the very beginning of what deserves the name of exact knowledge; 

while Darwinism fails all along the line". — "Science and Philosophy of 

Organism", p. 269. 
84 "Man or Monkey", Month, Vol. 113. p. 373. 

[201] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actii. 

the overthrow of the Darwinian theory. In the first decade 
of the twentieth century it has become apparent that the 
days of Darwinism are numbered. Among its latest op- 
ponents are such savants, as Eimer, Gustav Wolf, De Vries, 
Hooke, von Wellstein, Fleischmann, Reinke, and many 
others. ' ' Cf . von Hartman — The Passing of Darwinism. 

Hamlet, the philosopher, must be classed with these sane 
minds of our day, who, in their ability to distinguish facts 
from mere suppositions, do not lose the substance by grasp- 
ing at its shadow. Like them he saw that from the earliest 
times, man's nature revealed no human progress in the real 
sense of the word. 35 What is progress, asks Mr. Bryce in an 
Address at Harvard: 

"It does not seem possible, if we go back to the earliest 
eastern Europe, to say the creative powers of the human 
mind in such subjects as poetry, philosophy, and historical 
narrative or portraiture have either improved or deterior- 
ated. The poetry of the early Hebrews and of the early 
Greeks has never been surpassed and hardly ever equaled. 
Neither has the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, and the 
speeches of Cicero and Demosthenes. Geniuses like Dante, 
Chaucer and Shakespeare appear without our being able 
to account for them, and for aught we know, another may 
occur at any moment." Atlantic Monthly, Aug. 1907. 

From the contemplation of man in his high nobility of 
nature, Hamlet turns naturally to compare him mentally 
with men of real life, as he observes them at court. "This 

85 Professor Petrie, the highest authority on Egyptology from 2000 to 5000 
years before Christ, writes: 

"We have now before us a view of man at the earliest point to which we can 
trace written history, and what strikes us most is how very little his 
nature and his abilities have changed, in seven thousand years; what he 
admired, we admire; what were his limits in fine handiwork also are ours. 
We have a wider outlook, a greater understanding of things ; our interests 
may have extended in that interval, but so far as human nature and tastes 
go, man is essentially unchanged in this interval. This is the practical 
outlook, and it must teach us how little material civilization is likely in 
the future to change the nature, the weaknesses or the abilities of our 
ancestors in ages yet to come." — "Romance of Early Civilization", The 
Independent, Jan. 7, 1909. 

[ 202 ] 



scene ii. THE INHIBITION 

quintessence of dust," though informed and ennobled by a 
spiritual soul, he finds to be defiled by ignoble traits and base 
human passions. The realistic view affects him with sadness 
and painful depression. His faith in mankind is shaken by 
his uncle 's treachery and crimes ; and his mother 's shocking 
frailty and shamelessness undermine his confidence in 
womankind. Faint at heart and sick of soul, he moves alone 
amid a motly court, burdened with a secret which he may 
not speak, and feels himself a solitary, the one lone prisoner 
in some wild and desert waste. If from their preconceived no- 
tion, his apparent misanthropy seems to his young friends a 
proof of his mental malady, it will make their efforts fruit- 
less, and so serve his purpose well. 

THE INHIBITION 

The announcement that the Players are on their way to 
Elsinore at once awakens Hamlet from his melancholy, and 
turns his thoughts from the subjective to the objective world. 
Rejoicing at the news, he sees on the instant an opportunity 
for furthering his secret project. They are, he finds, the 
same tragedians in whom he took so much delight, when he 
and his young friends had attended their plays in the city. 
But he wonders why they travel in the provinces, since per- 
formances in the City would be better for their reputation 
and profit. Their journey through country towns was, how- 
ever, enforced by an "inhibition" which was caused by the 
"late innovation." The latter term may possibly refer to 
the new practice of treating polemically upon the stage mat- 
ters both political and religious, or to attacks upon "the 
new morals" of the Puritan party, or to the novelty of the 
choir boys of St. Paul and the Chapel Royal playing in the 
public theaters. 

[203] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actii. 

But there is another and more probable reason. 36 As 
the " innovation " is affirmed to be the cause of the "inhibi- 
tion," it must be explained in relation to the same. Inhibi- 
tion was a technical term employed by the Privy Council, 
when prohibiting any Play or the performance of a particular 
troupe. The company of Shakespeare had fallen under the 
displeasure of the government in 1601, owing to the share it 
had taken in the "innovation," or conspiracy of Essex and 
Southampton, the Poet's patrons. 87 In consequence, they 
left the City and, travelling through the provinces, are 
known to have played at Aberdeen, at Cambridge, at Oxford, 
and other cities of the kingdom. 

Strange to say, the reason which Shakespeare assigns for 
the travelling of Hamlet's favorite tragedians, is wholly 
different in each of the three versions of the play. In the 
First Quarto (1603), the sole cause given is the popular favor 
accorded to a rival company of children; in the Second 
Quarto (1604), a new cause is alleged, which, as already 
noted, was the "inhibition" due to the "innovation." But 
in the First Folio (1623), both causes are given in explana- 
tion of the travelling of the company. As on this point our 
modern text, is but a verbatim copy of this First Folio, we 
need, for the sake of comparison, only give the text of the 
First and Second Quartos. 

First Quarto. (1603.) 

Ham. How comes it that they travel? Do they grow 

rusty? 
Gil. No, my lord, their reputation holds as it was wont. 
Ham. How then 1 
Gil. In faith, my lord, novelty carries it away, 

For the principal public audience that 

Came to them, are turned to private plays, 

And to the humor of children. 

36 Cf. Fleay's "Chronicle History of the London Stage". 
3 7 "Vide", Part 1. C. 1. 

[204] 



scene ii. THEATRICAL RIVALRY 

Second Quarto. (1604.) 

Ham. How chances it they travel? Their residence both 
in reputation, and profit was better both ways. 

Ros. I think their inhibition, comes by means of the late 
innovation. 

Ham. Do they hold the estimation they did when I was 
in the City; are they so followed? 

Ros. No indeed they are not. 

In explanation of these variant texts, it may be noted 
that Shakespeare's company first performed Hamlet in the 
tour of the provinces in 1601, and continued its enactment 
on returning to London in 1602. It is natural to suppose, 
since Elizabeth was still reigning, that the company, acting 
either in the provinces or in the City, deemed it prudent to 
avoid all allusions in the play to the disgrace into which they 
had fallen; hence, the piratical copy of the drama, which 
was printed in 1603, contains no mention of the "inhibition" 
due to the "late innovation." In that same year the Queen 
died, and Shakespeare's company came under the direct 
patronage of James the First. But meanwhile, the Poet 
had revised the play as we have it in the edition of 1604, 
and caution being no longer necessary, he assigned the real 
cause of his company's enforced travel in the provinces to an 
"inhibition" by reason of the "late innovation." When, 
however, after Shakespeare's death, the play was again 
printed in 1623, the passage was found to have been elabo- 
rated so as to contain the allusion of the First as well as of 
the Second Quarto, and this version is followed in our mod- 
ern text. 

THEATRICAL RIVALRY 

The Poet immediately proceeds by a short digression to 
give us a sketch of the theatrical rivalry then existing be- 
tween adult and boy actors on the stage. It had been long 

[205] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actii. 

customary before Shakespeare's day for choir boys to give 
occasional performances in public, and in fact recruits for 
the common theatre were often found among them, espe- 
cially for women's parts at a time when females were not 
allowed to play upon the public stage. At this period, the 
choir boys notably of Chapel Royal, St. Paul, and West- 
minster schools, had attained preeminence, and won the favor 
of the public. Soon organized into regular companies, 
they invaded the theatres in competition with adult actors. 
A keen strife resulted, in which the public responded with 
enthusiasm to the efforts of the boy-players. With them 
arose, according to Heywood, the practice of attacking cus- 
toms, laws, and public and private characters, as well as of 
ridiculing the more famous adult actors. 

At the Blackfriars Theatre, the Chapel children enacted 
Jonson's satirical dramas, in which he lampooned most of his 
rival dramatists. In general, those who wrote plays for chil- 
dren presumed themselves to be shielded by the youthful- 
ness of the players in their sallies of satire and invective. 
For this reason Shakespeare glanced reprehensively upon the 
pertness of these unfledged nestlings, who certainly would 
grow up into ' ' common players. ' ' Furthermore, he was him- 
self a sufferer in his theatre ; these Chapel players, as Rosen- 
crantz affirms, had by force of popular favor carried away for 
the time even ' ' Hercules and his load, ' ' that is to say Shakes- 
peare 's own Globe Theatre, the sign of which was Hercules 
carrying the globe. 

From the present instance of the fickleness of popular 
favor, Hamlet, preoccupied of mind, turns to another ex- 
ample in the case of Claudius. Many who a few months 
before in ridicule made faces at him, now purchase his minia- 
ture at great price. Affected with disgust at the thought, 
he exclaims : " S 'blood, there is something in this more than 

[ 206 ] 



scene ii.. TOYING WITH POLONIUS 

natural, if philosophy could find it out." His utterance of 
the term "S 'blood," as an abbreviation of the Sacred 
blood (of Christ) in reference to the Holy Eucharist, was 
often used in solemn affirmation. 

At a flourish of trumpets, which announces the arrival 
of the travelling company, Hamlet, from fear lest the courtiers 
would notice that his greeting to the players was more 
hearty than their own, hurriedly gives them a more gracious 
welcome than his coldness of suspicion at first allowed. He 
assures them, moreover, by allusion to their errand, that when 
opportunity serves his purpose he can distinguish a hawk 
from a handsaw. In this expression common to hawkers, 
handsaw is a corruption of hernsaw or heron, and Hamlet 
supposes what falconry affirms, that birds fly with the wind. 
If this be so, it follows that the wind being from the north- 
north-west, the bird will fly to the south, and, in consequence, 
the hunter facing the south, and dazzled by the rays of the 
sun, will find it difficult to distinguish his falcon from the 
heron; but when the wind is from the south, the sportsman 
with his back to the sun, can with undazzled eye readily dis- 
tinguish the birds. Thus Hamlet amid adverse winds or cir- 
cumstances may seem blinded in reason, but with favorable 
winds or opportunities, his uncle-father and aunt-mother will 
see that he has his right senses. 

TOYING WITH POLONIUS 

The next moment Hamlet observes the old chancellor shuf- 
fling forward in haste, and, having called the attention of the 
courtiers, says in an undertone: "Look! that great baby you 
see coming is not yet out of his swaddling clouts." After 
prophesying the nature of his errand, he begins in the presence 
of Polonius to address his young friends with earnest but irrele- 
vant words so as to blind him to the fact that they had been 

[207] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act ii. 

speaking of him. Noticing the old man 's anxiety to communi- 
cate the news, he roguishly forestalls him by speaking of Ros- 
cius, a famous Roman actor. Polonius at once blurts out that 
the actors have come, at which the Prince exclaims "buz, 
buz ! " an interjection often used against loquacious bores who 
were given to common places and trite tales. "The expres- 
sion," says Blackstone, "was used at Oxford when any one 
began a story that was generally known before." 

The old man on the supposition of Hamlet's malady, ig- 
nores his sarcastic retort, and proceeds to bepraise the actors 
as the best in the world for all kinds of Plays, and pedantically 
enumerates the many divisions and subdivisions of the drama, 
as found in the license given to the King's Company in 1603. 
But unsatisfied with these divisions, Polonius with vain display 
adds others of his own : as, " scenes individable or unlimited ' ' 
according as they observed the Unity of Place or not; plays 
of "writ or of liberty," that is classic or romantic dramas, 
whether written or improvised. For all of them these actors 
are the only players. With Seneca and with Plautus they are 
equally at home ; the former excelled in tragedy as the latter 
did in comedy, and both in Shakespeare's time were the fash- 
ionable models for every playwright. With ironical admiration 
of the chancellor's literary judgment, Hamlet exclaims: 

"0 Jephthah, 38 judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!" 

3 8 Jephte was a warrior of Galaad. Having been chosen to conduct a campaign 
against the Ammonites, ' 'the spirit of the Lord came upon him. He made 
a vow to the Lord saying: If thou wilt deliver the children of Ammon 
into my hands, whosoever shall first come forth out of the doors of my 
house, and shall meet me when I return in peace from the children of 
Ammon, the same will I offer a holocaust to the Lord". On his triumphant 
return to his home in Mispha the first person to meet him was his only 
daughter. The common opinion is that Jephte immolated his daughter in 
fulfilment of his vow; but according to another opinion his vow was kept 
by the daughter being consecrated to a life of virginity. This seems 
plausible from the verse (Judges) XI, 37, where she asks for two months 
in which to bewail her virginity; and by verse 39, where we are told that 
according to his vow, she knew no man, which was in consonance with a 
statute in Israel. 

[208] 



scene ii. TESTING THE PLAYERS 

Polonius is bewildered for the moment. The treasure is 
his daughter whom, like Jephthah, he would sacrifice. The 
words quoted are from a popular ballad current at the time. 
The first stanza runs as follows: 

"I have read that many years ago, 
When Jephthah, judge of Israel, 
Had one fair daughter and no more, 
Whom he loved passing well; 
As by lot, God wot, 
It came to pass, most like it was, 
Great wars there should be, 
And who should be the chief but he, but he." 

By this quizzical allusion to the daughter, Hamlet confirms 
Polonius in his pet theory, and, continuing to play with the 
old diplomat, further puzzles him by equivocal expressions, 
and seeing him all amazed, suddenly cuts off the dialogue, and 
turns to welcome the approaching Players. 

TESTING THE PLAYERS 

The hero is portrayed throughout the drama as a man of 
uncommon mind, enriched with more than ordinary literary 
attainments; but for the exaltation of the Poet's own avoca- 
tion, he is pictured in the present instance, not only as a lover 
and patron of the theater, but even as a master of the dramatic 
art. Hamlet, therefore, welcomes the Players with a gracious 
warmth that indicates his good will and pleasure, treats them 
with a familiarity common among old friends, and addresses 
each one personally with a gayety and wit that is prompted 
either by his appearance or some known characteristic. 

They are now more than ever welcome ; by their presence, 
he hopes to find some distraction from his gloomy thoughts, a 
glad relief from his oppressive melancholy, and above all, a 
furtherance of his secret design to discover the guilt of Claud- 
ius by their art. Overmastered by this purpose, he instantly 

[209] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actii. 

with the ardor of a "French falconer" challenges the chief 
Player for ' ' a passionate speech. ' ' To test his tragical ability 
he calls for a play which he once saw them perform. It was 
"caviare" to the general public, because neither understood 
nor relished by the groundlings, but to the cultured it was 
very entertaining; for characterized as it was by propriety, 
order, and proportion, and free from irrelevancies and affec- 
tations, each scene was carefully elaborated to advance the 
plot. Of this play, one speech, the tale of Aeneas 39 to Dido f 
was especially pleasing to Hamlet, and, at his prompting, the 
First Player declaims it with good effect. 

The speech has given rise to much discussion. Some con- 
sider it a mere burlesque, or satire upon ' ' university and court 
wit and scholar with his 'laws and writ' and his unities and 
classic models;" but it seems obvious that Shakespeare was 
obliged to write the actor's speech in a totally different style 
from that of his own Play, in order that one might be dis- 
tinguished from the other. Moreover, the speech should have 
the characteristics of Plays which were current in Hamlet's 
day, long before the drama had reached its Shakespearean 
perfection. Such dramas, partaking much of the nature of the 
epic, were often replete with highly poetical declamations, 
which were couched in the lyric vehemence and pomp of heroic 
verse. 

POLONIUS A CRITIC 

Polonius, little interested in the passionate speech, is 
heedless of the forcible imagery of the pathetic tale, and at 

39 Aeneas was the reputed founder of the Roman nation. Wandering over the 
Mediterranean after the fall of Troy, he touched at Carthage, where enter- 
tained by Queen Dido, he narrated the destruction of the ill-fated city; 
how the Greeks unable to capture it by assault, had cunningly constructed 
a wooden horse in which they concealed a troop of armed men. When the 
Trojans had dragged it within their walls as a trophy of their triumph the 
Greeks came forth at night from their hiding place, and laid waste the city 
by fire and sword. Pyrrhus slew king Priam, but Hecuba, the queen was 
carried off a slave. Aeneas bearing his father Anchises on his shoulders, 
escaped unnoticed from the flames. 

[210] 



scene ii. POLONIUS A CRITIC 

its finest part interrupts the player by exclaiming, "this is 
too long ! ' ' Though presuming to be a good literary critic, he 
unconsciously betrays his bad taste and aligns himself with 
the groundlings against Hamlet, who a moment before had 
praised the same play so highly. The Prince in instant de- 
fense of the actor, turns upon the doting critic : he should go to 
the barber with his too long beard; the speech is beyond his 
comprehension, and therefore makes him drowsy; what will 
he have, a jig or a bawdry doggerel suitable to "ground- 
lings f " A jig was in the Poet's day a humorous performance 
given after the fall of the curtain, and consisted of coarse lud- 
icrous dialogue with music and dancing, much perhaps after 
the fashion of our modern "Music Halls." Such scornful 
taunts enforce silence on Polonius ; but conscious of his blun- 
der and anxious to maintain his reputation as a literary critic 
against such a public assault, he greedily grasps the first op- 
portunity to interpolate another but unfortunate criticism. 
It is on the word "mobled," or muffled, which Hamlet, in 
likelihood to tempt him, takes up and repeats with emphasis, 
and the dotard at once gleefully approves it as highly digni- 
fied and appropiate. 

Dismissing the Players, the Prince commends them to the 
care of Polonius, and is solicitous that he treat them well. In 
praise of the dramatic art he calls the actors the "abstracts 
and chroniclers of time ; ' ' for the purpose of the drama is to 
present by a brief but intensive form a view of great historic 
characters and note-worthy events. In the Poet's day, before 
the advent of the modern novel and newspaper, the theatre 
possessed much of their influence, dealt largely with satire, and 
held up public men of fame or notoriety to commendation or 
ridicule. Hence, Hamlet infers that it is worse for Polonius to 
have their ill-repute during life, than a bad epitaph after 
death. When to his command, to use the players well, the 

[211] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act ii. 

chancellor flippantly replies: "I will use them according to 
their desert," the Prince considers the remark a slight upon 
his guests, and, in consequence, administers a sharp rebuke, 
exclaiming : ' ' God 's bodykins. The less they deserve the more 
is the merit of your bounty, ' ' and insinuates that if every man 
had his due, Polonius himself would not escape a whipping. 
The exclamation, God's body or bodykins, which is a diminu- 
tive of body, signifies the small sacred wafer of the Holy Eu- 
charist. 

After the exit of Polonius and all the actors save the First, 
Hamlet engages him to play before the court on the morrow 
night a tragedy known as The Murder of Gonzago, in which 
are to be inserted some twelve or sixteen lines of his own. The 
identity of these lines has always been a subject of controver- 
sy. They are found, some commentators think, in the Player- 
king's speech, beginning with the words, "I do not believe 
you think what now you speak ; ' ' because the passage is very 
philosophical and clearly marks Hamlet's characteristic turn 
of mind. Others maintain that this passage cannot be the one 
in question, since it does not harmonize with Hamlet's pur- 
pose, which was to introduce in the play the portrayal of an 
action parallel to the crime of Claudius. Such a portrayal is 
found only in the lines spoken by Lucianus ; but he is unable 
to deliver the whole interpolated passage ; for after the sixth 
line, while pouring the poison into the ear of the sleeping 
Player-King, he is interrupted by the commotion of the court, 
which is thrown into disorder by the sudden agitation and 
hasty retreat of the stricken Claudius. 

In closing his private interview with the First Player, it 
occurs to Hamlet that these adepts of the mimic art, having 
witnessed with evident delight his repeated sallies of satire 
against Polonius, might presume to imitate him, and, there- 
fore, with his usual delicacy of feeling, cautions him against 

[212] 



scene ii. A MENTAL CONFLICT 

following his own example. His farewell words are those in 
common use among good Catholics, "God be with you," — 
words which in a modern and more materialistic age, have 
been corrupted into our "good bye." 

IN MENTAL CONFLICT 

"Now I am alone," exclaims Hamlet, rejoicing in freedom 
from the restraint which the presence of distrusted persons 
had imposed upon him. Far from enacting the madman in 
this and other soliloquies, he is recollected, full of intro- 
spection, and coherent thought, and if his words and feelings 
be impassioned, it is solely from the mental and moral 
pressure that burdens his soul. He reveals in sharp outlines 
the self-struggle which, beginning with his sworn resolve to 
avenge the murder, continues intermittingly throughout the 
drama. It is, however, more marked in his soliloquies in 
which, free from espionage, he can freely body forth his burn- 
ing thoughts and emotions. 

His present struggle arises from a conflict between his 
thirst for action and the enforced necessity of delay. It is a 
conflict between natural and Christian sentiments, between his 
lower and higher nature, a conflict in which the pagan, re- 
belling against the Christian, storms and rages, and charges 
him unduly with many faults and vices. The struggle is 
aroused and fanned to fierceness by thoughts which result 
from the comparison between the actor's passion and his own 
inertness. With no motive, save his mimic art, the Player in fict- 
itious passion can with quavering voice and tearful eyes speak 
so movingly of Priam's death and the grief of Hecuba. But 
what is Hecuba to him, that he should weep for her ? 

"What would he do had he my loss? 
His father murdered, a crown bereft him. 
He would turn all his tears to drops of blood, 

[213] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act ii. 

Amaze the standers by, by his laments, 
Strike more than wonder in judicial ears, 
Confound the ignorant and make mute the wise, 
Indeed his passion would be general.' ' 

(Original text of 1603.) 

All this would Hamlet do with the freedom of the Player, 
but this freedom is denied him. In the present situation, he 
can act no play, nor betray the secret revelation, nor disclose 
his own conviction of his uncle's guilt, without making still 
more difficult the work of his "revenge." With no proof of 
the murder, save the shadowy word of an invisible witness, he 
must lapse into an enforced inactivity, and at best work in- 
directly upon the supposed criminal by means of an image re- 
flected by the Players. They are free to act where he by force 
of circumstances is constrained to look on in silent observa- 
tion. 

MAN AND SUPERMAN 

To understand the conflict of Hamlet is to understand 
the nature of the opposing forces at work within him. In man 
is a dual or complex nature of soul and body, the one higher 
and the other lower, the one animal and the other rational, and 

40 Frederich Nietzsche (1844-1900), a German of the positivistic school, was 
strong in his dislike of Christianity. When the Darwinian theory was first 
announced, he found it convenient for the construction of a new system of 
ethics. Dividing mankind into two classes, he called the one Ubermensch, 
or superman, and the other, "Sklavenmensch", or serf. To the former 
belong all men of superior powers, who are capable of dominating others, 
and fitted to survive in an egoistic struggle for the mastery; to the lat- 
ter belong the vulgar mass, or common herd of humanity. These two 
classes of "men" and "supermen" he subjects to different laws of ethics. 
To the man or serf, typical of the multitude, he assigns "Sklavenmoral", 
or the laws of Christian morality, which are good enough for the masses 
and even necessary to keep them in subjection. But such laws do not 
bind the "Superman" who, as a superior being, a genius, a god, has no 
superior or master whatsoever, and therefore, free from obligation is 
privileged to* follow his instincts and his passions without accountability 
or restraint. This strange system, seems a reflection of the pride and pre- 
sumption of the pharisee who thanked God that he was not like other 
men. Such doctrines are less surprising when we learn that the un- 
fortunate man was hopelessly stricken with insanity, which continued in 
violence till his death, eleven years later. 

[214] 



scene ii. MAN AND SUPERMAN 

the union of these two opposing forces in the one personality 
affords a continuous source of struggle. These two warring 
elements may be well denominated man and superman, not 
indeed, be it noted, in the objectionable and unwarranted 
sense in which Nietzsche 40 used them, but in the true and orig- 
inal meaning as dictated by Christian philosophy and revela- 
tion. 

In man 's primordial fall was lost that harmony which once 
existed between his material and spiritual natures; and, as a 
consequence, arose a mutual antagonism, which incites to an 
intermittent war for the mastery. Between them there can be 
no reconciliation; for the flesh must ever be flesh and the 
spirit ever spirit. Hence, in the words of Sacred Scripture, 
' ' the life of man is a continual warfare ; " no peace can be look- 
ed for till death tear apart the combatants. 

The cause of this warfare is the insubordination of man 's 
inferior or animal nature. Being corruptible, it is subject to 
blind instincts and irrational passions. These, though good 
in themselves, often lead to abuse, because they tend to their ob- 
jects independently of man's higher nature, and often against 
right reason and the moral order. Of this nature, Holy Writ 
affirms, ' ' man is inclined to evil from his youth. ' ' Man 's prin- 
ciple of good is the higher or rational nature of the superman, 
which, being immaterial, incorruptible, and spiritual, and en- 
dowed with a nobler life and faculties, rises to higher pur- 
poses than those of the material instincts and passions of the 
animal. The superman, and not the man, is by the light of 
reason able to apprehend the natural law, to distinguish be- 
tween good and evil, and to recognize his rational and moral 
obligation to embrace the one and to shun the other. As the 
master of his own household, the Superman should in all 
things reduce to subjection the man of the lower or rebellious 
nature, so that in harmony with the superman it may also 

[215] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act ii. 

tend to the greater common good of the whole man. Such 
subordination may be seen exemplified in the life of a man 
who, uninfluenced by a supernatural religion, lives a mere 
natural life under the guidance of reason and the natural 
law. 

Such a man, however, does not exhaust the meaning of the 
term superman, as we employ it. Between him and the Chris- 
tian arises a difference which distinguishes the natural from 
the supernatural man. The natural superman lives wholly 
absorbed in the interests of the present life, and, because ig- 
norant of the supernatural and indifferent to all things spirit- 
ual or supernal, is concerned with nothing beyond our visible 
creation. The Christian superman, on the contrary, is reborn 
by divine grace to a new and more exalted life, and illumined 
by heavenly revealed truths, rises, superior to transient and 
corruptible things, to a higher and spiritual world of exist- 
ences, whose interests captivate his mind and heart, and urge 
him to nobler aspirations, hopes, and activities. The super- 
natural with all that it implies may be summed up in the 
word religion, which, says Carlyle, "is the soul of practice 
and the primary end of man's life." But in the pursuit of 
this higher life, the Christian superman finds himself in almost 
daily conflict with the man of the lower or merely natural life. 

The Christian hero of the tragedy exemplifies this dual 
conflict. In the one, it is that of the man against the superman, 
or of the lower and animal nature against the higher and 
rational; and in the other, that of the natural against the 
supernatural man. If we bear this in mind, then the real 
cause of Hamlet's intermittent self -struggles, as revealed by all 
his soliloquies, becomes at once apparent. Burning with the 
sense of wrong, afflicted by pain, weary of suffering, and im- 
pelled by a passionate desire of "revenge," the man in a 
fierce struggle which lacerates the heart and clouds the mind, 

[216] 



scene ii. MAN AND SUPERMAN 

stubbornly battles to swerve the superman from the counsel of 
prudence and justice, and to goad him on to instant "re- 
venge. ' ' 

The present soliloquy in which from reflection upon the 
supposed guilt of Claudius, as well as upon his own sufferings, 
and the imposed necessity of inaction, Hamlet's irrational 
lower nature of blind instincts and passions is lashed to fury by 
a thirst for ' ' revenge, ' ' we see the man in riotous mutiny and 
madness railing against the check of its murderous impulse; 
from the wild conflict results an agony intolerable, which 
drives the man to the extremity of venting his ire against the 
restraint imposed by the insuperable will of the superman. 
The man dubs him a dull and muddy-mettled rascal, a John-a- 
dreams, who can say or do nothing in the cause of a dear 
father murdered and of a mother dishonored. The man calls 
the superman a hopeless coward on whom men may heap with 
impunity the most galling insults even to extreme provocation. 
When the gnashing hunger for ' ' revenge ' ' gnaws at his heart ; 
when every fibre of his body quivers in rebellion, and his 
soul is tortured by mental anguish; when his mortal nature 
impatient of pain and weary of further suffering, revolts in a 
struggle that starts his blood coursing like liquid fire through 
his arteries ; then it is that the man cries out in a voice which 
surely is not that of a weakling, but of a man of great 
physical courage. 

Though the onslaught of the man of passion in his blind 
eagerness to slake at once his bloody thirst for "revenge," be 
blocked by the superman, he, nevertheless, persists in rebel- 
lion, plagues him without ceasing, and growing in ferocity as 
opposition increases, rails at him with greater vehemence, and 
by the sacred wounds of Christ swears a solemn oath that he 
must be pigeon-livered and lack courage to make oppression 
bitter to the "bloody, bawdy villain." 

[217] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actii. 

When the fury of the man has reached its fiercest, the 
superman, roused to action, reasserts himself, and condemning 
the blind and irrational rage of the man, reduces him to 
silence, ' ' What an ass " he is ? Surely it is far from brave to 
rave and fall a-cursing like a very drab and scullion, when 
prompted to "revenge" "by heaven and hell;" by heaven, 
whose messenger is the purgatorial ghost in the cause of 
justice ; and by hell, which through rebellious passion would 
impel him to commit a foul crime. 

The restraint imposed by the superman is not due merely 
to subjective causes either of cowardice, or of incapacity of 
action, or of morbid scrupulousness, or of weakness of will; 
but arises partly from subjective and partly from objective 
causes which for the present he is unable to remove. The 
superman understands that he must be guided by conscience, 
and his conscience forbids him to become, like Claudius, a 
knavish assassin. He is not seeking the murder of the King, 
but a just "revenge." He is seeking to fulfil a sworn re- 
solve according to his Christian conscience, which dictates 
that he must satisfy, not only his own inner conscience, but 
also the public conscience of Denmark as to the justice of his 
bloody and summary "revenge." Hence the superman with- 
holds the animal man from the mad perpetration of a crime 
— probably a foul murder — without having verified the 
reality and veracity of the ghost, and attained certainty as to 
the guilt of his uncle. A strong sense of honor, of justice, and 
of conscientious duty, therefore, stay him in the firm purpose 
of a just "revenge," and from rushing without proof into 
premature action, which would surely ruin his cause, defile 
his soul, and bring disgrace and odium upon his princely 
name. 

[218] 



scene ir. THE PLAY 



THE PLAY'S THE THING 



No sooner has the Prince subdued the warring elements 
within him, and recovered some calmness of mind, than he 
reverts to the project which he had instantly conceived at 
his first meeting with the Players. During the interval from 
the apparition of the ghost to the present moment, which was 
a period of little more than a month, he had been far from idle. 
Daily walking in feigned madness for hours at the court, and 
fully armed against any surprise or treachery of the King, he 
continually haunted his presence, and watched his every act 
with the hope of catching him in some new crime, or at least 
discovering something to authenticate the words of the ghost. 

Action is his duty, but the first and necessary action in the 
prosecution of his purpose, is to discover whether Claudius is 
really guilty of the murder as the ghost had charged. Never 
doubting the reality of the apparition, he had reason to sus- 
pect its identity and veracity. This thought ruling his mind, 
Hamlet sees its realization with the arrival of the strolling 
players. He soliloquizes upon the rumor that felons, present at 
a Play which mimicked their secret crime, were so overcome by 
the sense of guilt as to confess their malefactions. He accord- 
ingly resolves upon a design which could not be more cun- 
ning and artful; he shall have the Players enact before the 
King a tragedy whose plot is parallel with that of the murder 
of his father. By the vivid portrayal of the crime, he will take 
Claudius by surprise, confront him with his secret murder, 
and unmask him before the whole court. If he be guilty, the 
criminal will blanch, and tremble, and manifest confusion, ac- 
tions which, at least in the eyes of Hamlet, shall be a confes- 
sion of the murder. It will warrant him to "take the ghost's 
word for a thousand pounds. " 

Strange, indeed, is the error of the subjective school, 
which imagines that Hamlet resorts to the play, in order to 

[219] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actii. 

procrastinate or delay the " revenge." On the contrary, by 
the play, he takes the first possible and indispensable step in 
the performance of a task, which demands that his knowledge 
of the King's guilt be beyond doubt before he strike the aveng- 
ing blow, and he can obtain such knowledge only by the cul- 
prit's own confession, which, therefore, is the point on which 
all depends. Hence in the consciousness of this fact, Hamlet 
exclaims "the play's the thing, wherein I'll catch the con- 
science of the King. ' ' 

IT MAY BE THE DEVIL 

There was another reason for testing the conscience of 
the King. If the play, as he hoped, would unveil the secret 
crime of Claudius, it would also, as a consequence, assure him 
that the ghost was truthful, and therefore, not an evil spirit. 
While admitting the fact of the ghost's apparition, he had no 
proof of its true nature, whether it was a heaven-sent spirit for 
good, or a fallen angel of evil, desirous of luring him to crime. 
The suggestions of Hell, whose support he had instantly re- 
jected from the first, were ever returning to his mind, excit- 
ing his passion for "revenge," and startling his conscience by 
the foul thoughts of red-handed murder. With reason, there- 
fore, his fluctuating mind was troubled by intermittent doubt, 
as well as by the voice of conscience, which bade him be wary 
and cautious lest the apparition be the foul fiend, who, having 
power to assume a pleasing shape, might in the form of his 
father's ghost design to ensnare him by his wiles. 

His doubting mood and his backwardness in accepting 
after mature reflection the word of the ghost as true, has ap- 
peared to some critics a sufficient cause for looking upon Ham- 
let as a sceptic. Such a view appears untenable, if we consider 
' ' that the whole fabric as expressly intimated in the first scene 
is based on the religious ideas and moral doctrines of Chris- 

[220] 



scene ii. IT MAY BE THE DEVIL 

tianity." It is, moreover, barred by the text itself; even to 
the casual reader it emphasizes the cause of Hamlet's hesita- 
tion as prompted by prudent and conscientious motives ; he is, 
therefore, free from the folly of scepticism, a theory that ad- 
vocates a mental state of doubt even in the presence of 
rational and sufficient reasons for certainty. 

Critics who adhere to the theory of Hamlet's defective 
will, naturally see in his doubt an excuse for delay. One af- 
firms that his desire to write a play leads him to persuade 
himself that he suspects. Herein is a confusion of ideas ; it is 
clear from the text that Hamlet engaged the players to enact 
the Murder of Gonzago for the sole purpose of clearing up his 
doubts, and, moreover, he himself wrote no drama, but only 
inserted sixteen lines in a preexisting play. - 

' ' But in the first Act, " it is urged, ' ' he was quickly con- 
vinced of the ghost's identity, and not a shadow of suspicion 
crossed his mind since. ' ' A little reflection will, however, show 
to the contrary that Hamlet in presence of the ghost was too 
highly excited in mind and feeling to reason calmly upon the 
nature of the apparition ; from supreme agitation he could only 
listen to its woeful tale on the assumption that it was what it 
appeared and claimed to be. As soon as his equanimity was 
restored, his philosophic mind perceived on reflection, not 
only that the assumption was unproven, but also that there 
were several sane reasons for questioning the identity and 
veracity of the ghost. Though those anxious doubts were 
ever present to his mind, he saw no way of settling them, 
until the arrival of the players; hence his glad welcome of 
the actors, and his hasty determination to solve the mystery 
by means of the play. 

But continues the critic, "The Church's tendency to at- 
tribute unexplained phenomena to the devil, commends itself 
to Hamlet as affording rational excuse for delay. ' ' Here again 

[221] 



THE' RIDDLES OF HAMLET actii. 

we have a dual misunderstanding, the one concerning the 
teaching of the Church and the other concerning the mental 
state of Hamlet. The Church does not attribute unexplained 
phenomena to the devil, but only such as upon the most irre- 
sistable evidence can proceed from him alone. Concerning 
others, she suspends judgment as long as any doubt remains. 
Hamlet, therefore, had "a rational excuse" for acting con- 
trary to the assertion of the critic; for true to the teaching 
of his faith, he did not attribute the phenomenal apparition 
to the devil ; but, having no proof of its identity, suspended 
judgment, until he could acquire certainty. His doubt was, 
therefore, rational, and saved him from a rash act — a prob- 
ably criminal murder. 

Hamlet, in fact, is sure of the vision, but suspicious of its 
purpose, and this suspicion is engendered by the knowledge 
which he has of the unseen world, as well as by his Christian 
faith, which admonishes him in words addressed by St. Paul to 
the early Christians, that " Satan" in the temptation of man, 
"transformeth himself into an angel of light;" 41 again, in the 
words of St. John, "believe not every spirit, but try the spir- 
its, if they be of God." 42 Moreover, his religion which repro- 
bates all the black arts as works of the devil, also prohibits all 
direct and indirect dealings with spirits of the other world, 
because forbidden by God's command, as recorded in Sacred 
Scripture. 

Hamlet, as an educated Christian, knew that the souls of 
the dead may not return to earth without divine permission ; 
and further, that fallen angels, or evil spirits rejected of 
God, can in hatred war against Him, only by warring against 
man, whose soul bears the image of its Maker. Simulating and 
impersonating the souls of the dead, these fallen spirits seek 
to mingle in human affairs with the hope of seducing man 

41 2 Cor. XI, 14. 42 1 Jno. IV, 1. 

[222] 



scene ii. IT MAY BE THE DEVIL 

from truth and morality. Lying spirits of hypocrisy, they are 
known to inculcate falsehoods and contradictions. They are 
known to deny fundamental truths of Christianity,- — the 
existence of God, the immortality of the soul, future rewards 
and punishments, the need of religion, and all distinction be- 
tween vice and virtue, — with the view of estranging man from 
God, and of supplanting His worship by their own perfidious 
cult. If " by their works ye shall know them, ' ' their credulous 
human dupes are certainly without excuse, when contrary to 
divine prohibition, they seek to communicate with these evil 
spirits of hypocrisy, and blindly assume, without one iota of 
proof, that they are really the human souls they impersonate. 
Hamlet's philosophic mind saved him from such folly, and 
furthermore, his Christian Faith dictated prudence and cau- 
tion, in accepting without proof, the word of a ghost, of whose 
nature and identity he was wholly ignorant. 

Hamlet's belief in the unseen world of fallen spirits and 
their nefarious efforts to beguile man to evil, and thence to 
damnation, since dictated by his Catholic Faith, is indeed 
nothing surprising; but the fact, nevertheless, reveals the 
strange coincidence, that Shakespeare 's views fully harmonize 
with what Ignatius of Loyola wrote upon the same subject 
some eighty years before. His book, entitled "The Spiritual 
Exercises," was written in 1522, and was known in England 
in the Poet 's day. It contains a treatise on the different meth- 
ods which good and evil spirits employ in dealing with man. 
Presupposing as a truism, as does Hamlet in the soliloquy, 
that evil spirits have power to influence the human will 
through the intellect, by presenting sensible and imaginary 
objects, by stimulating the passions, and by external sugges- 
tions, the treatise affirms that, besides those interior thoughts 
which simply spring from our own free will and desires, there 
are "two other kinds of thoughts which come from without: 

[223] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actii. 

one from the good and the other from the evil spirit." To 
discriminate these movements of the intellect and will, and to 
determine whence they proceed, whether from the good or evil 
spirit, is the purpose of the twenty two directions which are 
given in Loyola's treatise. 

It appears remarkable, indeed, that the Poet in his dram- 
as, especially in Hamlet and to a greater extent in Macbeth 43 
should exhibit a knowledge of this subject, which not only cor- 
responds with Loyola's treatise on "The Discernment of Spir- 
its," but is strongly suggestive of the work. A few citations 
in relation to the tragedy of Hamlet, will suffice for illustration. 
Loyola says, that it is peculiar to an evil spirit when dealing 
with a virtuous person, to approach in the guise of innocence, 
or in the form of an angel of light, and to begin by suggesting 
good thoughts which agree with the disposition of the person 
tempted, and afterwards to try by secret snares to pervert him 
to his own wickedness. Hamlet, accordingly, fears that the 
ghost may have been nothing more than an evil spirit, which 
appeared to him in the "pleasing shape" of his dearly loved 
father, in order to lead him the more easily into evil. 

Again, Loyola says that when the impulse is towards 
something evil or conducive to evil, it is the work of a fallen 
spirit. Hence, since the ghost would impel Hamlet to 
revenge and to murder, he has reason to doubt its nature and 
identity, and fears that it is a fallen angel intent on wicked- 
ness. Loyola, again affirms, that evil spirits seek to embarrass 
good persons by throwing in their way every kind of scruple 
under specious pretexts, with the view of troubling and agitat- 
ing the mind; since they like to fish in troubled waters; for 
when the mind is disturbed, it can less easily detect the pres- 
ence and the wiles of the evil one, whose characteristic, he af- 

43 Vid. the author's previous work: "A Great Soul in Conflict — A New Com- 
mentary on Shakespeare's Master-work", in which the subject is fully 
treated. 

[224] 



scene ii. IT MAY BE THE DEVIL 

firms, is to enter the soul in time of desolation or melancholy, 
in order to affect it with pusillanimity, sadness, and languor. 
This principle was, therefore, recognized by Hamlet, when in 
the consciousness of the state of his own agitated mind and 
deep melancholy, he affirmed that the devil "is very potent" 
with persons who suffer from ' ' melancholy ' ' and from ' ' weak- 
ness " of a troubled mind. Actuated, therefore, by the aforesaid 
principles, Hamlet was very rational in doubting the identity 
and veracity of the ghost, and most prudent in demanding 
more evident and tangible proof of the supposed crime of his 
uncle than the unsubstantial voice of a dubious and mistrusted 
ghost. If the Play disclose the crime of Claudius, it will also 
show that the apparition which claimed to be his father's 
ghost is a spirit good, truthful, and worthy of his confidence. 
Only after this important fact has been established beyond 
doubt by the following Act, may he with clear conscience turn 
to the pursuit of the ' revenge. ' 



[225] 



ACT THIRD 

SCENE FIRST 

THE REPORT OF THE SPIES 

Hamlet has been thus far portrayed as harassed by fears 
and doubts. Before proceeding to action in an affair so 
momentous as the slaying of Claudius, he felt it his con- 
scientious duty to solve his doubts, and to solve his doubts, he 
needed time in which he might devise some means of testing 
whether the message from the grave were from heaven or from 
hell. A delay was, therefore, dictated by prudence, and not 
by a desire to shirk his duty. He had, moreover, little to 
gain by rashness, but much from cautious procedure. If as 
the idol of the Danes and of the Queen-mother, he felt secure 
against the open treachery of the King, he relied still more on 
his own prowess of arms against any sudden sally of his foes. 
Diligently exercising himself from day to day with the skilful 
use of the sword, he frequented, fully armed, the halls of the 
court for the vigilant observance of the smiling villain, and 
showed himself in the mask of lunacy, not only a match for 
the wiles of his uncle, but even an over-match for false friends 
and the cunning of the intriguing chancellor. 

The Third Act brings us one day further; and, without 
notable interruption, events move on to their dreadful climax. 
Hamlet in the interval had, with his usual energy, devoted him- 
self to the practice of the Players. On the following morning, 
he presents himself at court in answer to a royal summons. 
The King was more than ever determined to discover the 
secret cause of his mad antics. Alone in the knowledge of his 
hidden crime, he had strong reasons for incredulity. If Ham- 

[226] 



scene i. REPORT OF THE SPIES 

let daily observed every move of the King, Claudius in turn 
observed him with no less vigilance and caution, and not 
satisfied with setting spies upon him, he himself maintained 
watchful guards about his person. 

At this stage of the drama, Claudius, in supreme un- 
easiness at the sight of Hamlet's increasing manifestations of 
"turbulent and dangerous lunacy," had summoned the spies, 
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to report their observations. 
To the disappointment of the King, they admit their ill suc- 
cess. They had, as he suggested, repeatedly essayed the 
Prince on the subject of love and ambition, but when they 
tried to bring him to a confession of his true state, he was 
loath to be sounded, and with a crafty madness kept himself 
aloof. Though very sparing of replies to their baited ques- 
tions, he was on other subjects most copious in speech, and, 
while admitting his melancholy and mental distraction, he 
manifested a marked repugnance to touch upon their cause 
and origin. 

The Queen next questions whether they had tempted him 
to resume his customary exercises, and to play anew their for- 
mer games and pastimes. In reply, they narrate how but 
yesterday he gladly welcomed some strolling players, enter- 
tained them at the castle, and, indifferent to all else, was now 
devoting himself to the rehearsal of a tragedy which, accord- 
ing to his design, they are to play to-night before the King 
and Queen in presence of the whole court. Polonius confirms 
the report, and adds that the Prince has commissioned him to 
invite their majesties to attend the Play. Claudius is de- 
lighted with the news, and well satisfied at the turn events 
have taken, urges the spies to cultivate this new form of 
amusement, and to aid and stimulate Hamlet's interest in the 
play and Players ; perchance, this diversion may lift from his 
mind the dark clouds of melancholy and distraction. 

[227] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

A STRATAGEM 

Polonius enters ready to meet the challenge of the King. 
Assured of victory, and joyous of mood, he hurries with 
Ophelia into the presence of Claudius, anxious to reveal be- 
fore his very eyes the fact that from the first he was correct in 
the diagnosis of the Prince 's lunacy. The King is equally glad 
to accept the challenge, and eager to employ the strata- 
gem at once, dismisses all save the chancellor and his daughter. 
Before the Queen departs, he informs her of the plot, and 
much pleased she turns in a gracious manner to the daughter of 
Polonius, and with words of high compliment wishes that her 
good beauties may in truth be the happy cause of her son's 
distraction, so that her virtues shall bring him to his wonted 
ways again. As she believes the theory of the minister, 
her words must have gladdened the heart of the young woman. 
Now that the Queen, in the presence of her father, wishes her 
to renew intercourse with Hamlet, she with secret joy deems 
herself dispensed from the harsh mandate of her parent. 

After Hamlet's sworn resolve which followed the inter- 
view with the ghost, he had tested Ophelia, and sorrowfully 
found her devoid of the strength of character he had looked 
for, a fact which in the present scene, she herself confirms 
by her conduct. That Ophelia without a single word of pro- 
test, should willingly ally herself with the Prince's enemies; 
that she should without objection acquiesce, and actually play 
an ignoble part in her father's plot; that, above all, she should 
make Hamlet's powerful love for her, the snare by which she 
would entrap him in presence of the King, seems indeed sur- 
passing strange, and may perhaps be explained on the sup- 
position, that she was unware of the full import of her con- 
duct. She had no knowledge of the real cause of Hamlet's 
transformation; but she did observe that, after she had pain- 
fully repelled him, he began to show signs of dementia, which 

[ 228 ] 



scene i. A STRATAGEM 

the whole court ascribed to her unkindness. When, therefore, 
to test the fact, the King and her father resort to a stratagem, 
it is, she thinks, for her lover's good, in which she is most 
of all interested. If they discover the true cause of his mad- 
ness to be her unkindness, they will surely see the remedy. 
Unfortunately, Ophelia looks upon the stratagem through the 
eyes of Hamlet's enemies, all unmindful of how it will be un- 
derstood by her sensitive and noble-minded lover. 

Whatever be the supposition, her readiness to decoy her 
lover, reveals her a true daughter of her father. His were 
low ideals of honor; with him it mattered little whether in 
the pursuit of ends noble or ignoble, ' ' fair was foul, and foul 
was fair." It is difficult to conceive how Ophelia's mind and 
heart could long remain uninfluenced by the words and ex- 
ample of such a father, especially when, from tender years 
bereft of a mother's love and care, she made him her sole 
and supreme guide in all affairs of life. Herself undeveloped 
in character, inexperienced in the devious ways of the world, 
and without her lover's keen ethical sense and lofty ideals of 
justice and honor, she naturally looked upon her father 's com- 
mands, regardless of their nature and their consequences, as 
for her the sum of all morality. Hence, she did not foresee 
how her act would appear so treacherous and perfidious to 
her lover's eyes, as to exasperate him, and bring down upon 
her the crashing thunders of a wrathful irony and contempt 
in a farewell which snapped asunder their bond of love, tore 
from his heart the one remaining vestige of respect for wo- 
manhood, and compelled her to realize all too late how she 
loved him more than life. 

In the scene, the King and Polonius are concealed be- 
hind the heavy curtains of the reception hall. Ophelia ap- 
parently alone and expecting the entrance of Hamlet at any 
moment, assumes according to her father's order the guise of 

[229] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act in. 

deep recollection and prayerful mood, and fixes her eyes upon 
her open prayer-book. Though she seems to read, as if ab- 
sorbed by devotion, her mind is actively at work on other 
thoughts; how, after her harsh treatment of her lover, shall 
she now meet him? What shall she say? — how shall she dis- 
cover if his love be true and still survive ? Polonius while pos- 
ing Ophelia recognizes the evil nature of his plot, and empha- 
sizes the meanness of his action by the reflection that : 

"We are oft to blame in this — 
'Tis too much proved — that with devotion's visage 
And pious action we do sugar o'er 
The devil himself.' ' 

These words addressed to Claudius assume a greater 
irony, if it be borne in mind that Polonius is a caricature of 
the aged prime-minister of Elizabeth, who had merited 
Shakespeare 's strong aversion by the severe prosecution of his 
noble patrons. His statecraft was on a par with that of 
Polonius, and his policy is well described in the instructions 
of the latter to the spy Eeynaldo : 

"See you now, 
Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth; 
And thus do we of wisdom and of reach, 
With windlasses and with assays of bias, 
By indirections find directions out." 

The hypocrisy of the times, which was the product of 
political and religious persecution, • made a deep impression 
upon the Poet, and in consequence he often lashes a vice so 
detestable. A few specimens may be cited : 

"0, what may man within him hide, 
Though angel on the outward side." 

(Meas. for Meas. III. 2.) 

"And thus I clothe my naked villainy, 
And seem a saint when most I play the devil." 

(Rich. III. 1. 3.) 

[230] 



scene i. "TO BE OR NOT TO BE" 

"When devils will their blackest sin put on 
They do suggest at first with heavenly shows." 

(Oth. II. 3.) 
"In religion, 
What damned error, but some sober brow 
Will bless it, and approve it with a text, 
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament." 

(Merch. Ven. III. 2.) 

The self-confession of hypocrisy on the part of Polonius 
is like wormwood to the sin-stricken soul of Claudius. It 
rouses him to thoughts of his own secret guilt, and, visibly 
affected, he discloses for the first time that he has still a 
conscience, and that it smarts under the lash unconsciously in- 
flicted by his minister. As Polonius hears the approaching 
foot steps of Hamlet, he suddenly cuts short the King's solilo- 
quy, and, leaving Ophelia alone in the reception hall, hurries 
away with Claudius to hide behind the arras. 

"TO BE OR NOT TO BE" 

The spies had scarcely found concealment before Hamlet 
enters at slow pace, wrapt in deep meditation. It is evident 
from the First Quarto, says Hunter, that the Poet intends 
Hamlet to enter, pondering upon what he is reading from 
an open book in his hand. It is a treatise on the ills of life, 
of death, of futurity, and of the question of being or not 
being, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil. Such a book 
was Cardanus' Comfort, published in 1576, a book which, 
Douce affirms, Shakespeare certainly possessed. His thoughts 
then should be regarded as rising from the objective argu- 
ments of the book, and not, as is too often supposed, from his 
own subjective mood and feelings. His abstraction of mind 
blinds him to the presence of Ophelia; and contending 
thoughts, which are reflected by troubled looks, find expres- 
sion in the famous soliloquy, "To be or not to be." 

[231] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

This soliloquy has long been a fertile field in which 
critics have delved with very divergent results. Goldsmith 
wrote : 

"The soliloquy of Hamlet, which we have often heard 
extolled in terms of admiration, is, in our opinion, a heap 
of absurdities, whether we consider the situation, the senti- 
ment, the argumentation or the poetry.' ' 

Goldsmith, though a poet, was not a philosopher, and it need 
not, therefore, appear surprising that the text on close ex- 
amination shall seem to bear a logical order of dependent and 
consecutive thought. Dr. Johnson affirms: 

"Hamlet knowing himself injured in the most enormous 
and atrocious degree, and seeing no means of redress but 
such as must expose him in the extremity of hazard, medi- 
tates on his situation in this manner: ' before I can form 
any rational scheme of action under this pressure of dis- 
tress, it is necessary to decide whether, after our present 
state, we are Ho be or not to be'." 

Against this opinion is Malone, who writes: 

"Dr. Johnson's explication of the first five lines of this 
passage is surely wrong. Hamlet is noft deliberating 
whether after our present state, we are to exist or not, 
but whether he should continue to live, or put an end to his 
life." 

If this opinion seem plausible at first sight, on reflection it 
appears superficial; against it are several eminent critics, 
who, we think, wisely reject it for the reason that it is not 
only unsupported by the text itself, but is even in contradic- 
tion with it. 

That history repeats itself is an axiom which is also 
verified in the literary and religious world. As all isms, 
since the birth of Christianity, have striven to establish their 
contradictory creeds upon the same foundation of the Sacred 
Scripture, so in modern times have Positivists, Agnostics, 

[232] 



scene i. "TO BE OR NOT TO BE" 

Pantheists, and Materialists attempted to read their mutually 
destructive teachings into the plays of Shakespeare. The right 
to claim him for their own, they base in no small degree upon 
this well known soliloquy. Such is the fate of the immortals ! 

Before proceeding to expose the hollowness of the claim 
by an analysis of the soliloquy, it is important to examine 
whether the text be indeed genuine and incorrupt, that is 
whether our modern version is really that of Shakespeare. If 
our text be dubious and uncertain, then the claim which the 
Agnostic and Pantheist build upon it, is at best but dubious 
and inconclusive. 

The Tragedy of Hamlet, as enacted by Shakespeare and 
his company on their tour through the provinces of England in 
1601, and on their return to London in 1602, was first printed 
in 1603, and is commonly known as the First Quarto. It was 
revised, enlarged, and reprinted in the following year. Two 
other editions were issued before the Poet's retirement from 
the stage in 1611, and in all these four Quartos are found 
many variations, as well as additions and omissions. The con- 
fusion was further increased, when seven years after the 
Poet's death, there appeared a new impression, known as the 
First Folio, which was printed in 1623 from an independent 
manuscript. It gives many passages which are not found in 
any of the preceding four Quartos, and omits others that they 
contain. It seems certain that the text of the Second Quarto 
(1604), as well as of the First Folio (1623), were prints of 
players' manuscripts, which had been curtailed with great 
freedom, and curtailed differently for the purpose of pre- 
sentation, and that from these two was formed a new com- 
posite text which is known as our modern version. It differs 
in many particulars from the text in use in the Poet's day. 
These facts have led Haliwell and other eminent critics to 
affirm that we must be content with an imperfect text of Ham- 

[233] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 



ACT III. 



let, since a perfect copy, such as was used by Shakespeare's 
company, is now beyond our power of attainment. This re- 
markable difference is in part well exemplified in the solilo- 
quy, if we but glance at the texts arranged in parallel 
columns. 



Original Text of 1603 

To be, or not to be, Ay, there's the point, 



To die, to sleep, is that all ? — Ay, all : 



No, to sleep, to dream, Ay, marry, there it goes, 



For in that dream of death, when we awake, 
And borne before an everlasting judge, 
From whence no passenger ever returned, 
The undiscovered country at whose sight, 
The happy smile and the accursed damn'd. 

But for this, the joyful hope of this, 



Who'd bear the scorns and flattery of the 

world, 
Scorned by the right rich, the rich cursed of 

the poor. 
The widow being oppressed, the orphan 

wronged, 
The taste of hunger, or a tyrant's reign, 
And thousand more calamities besides, 
To grunt and sweat under this weary life 



When that he may his own quietus make, 
With a bare bodkin. 



Who would this endure, 



Modern Composite Text 

To be, or not to be, — that is the question : 
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer 
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 
Or to take up arms against a sea of troubles, 
And by opposing, end them? 



To die, — to sleep, — 
No more ; and by a sleep to say we end 
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural 

shocks 
That flesh is heir to, — 'tis a consummation 
Devoutly to be wished. 



To die, — to sleep, - 
To sleep! perchance to dream! — Ay, there 1 
the rub ; 



For in that sleep of death what dreams may 

come 
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, 
Must give us pause: 



There's the respect 
That makes calamity of so long a life; 



For who would bear the whips and scorns of 

time, 
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's con- 
tumely, 
The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay, — 
The insolence of office, and the spurns 
That patient merit of the unworthy takes, 



When he himself might his quietus make 
With a bare bodkin? 



Who'd these fardels bear, 
To grunt and sweat under a weary life, 



[234] 



SCENE I. 



NO INTENT OF SUICIDE 



Original Text of 1603 

But for a hope of something after death? 



Which puzzles the brain, and doth confound 

the sense, 
Which makes us rather bear those ills we 

have, 
Than fly to others that we know not of. 
Ay, that, O this conscience makes cowards of 

us all. 



Modern Composite Text 

But that the dread of something after death, — 
The undiscovered country from whose bourn 
No traveller returns, 



puzzles the will, 
And makes us rather bear those ills we have 
Than fly to others that we know not of? 
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; 



And thus the native hue of resolution 
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought: 
And enterprises of great pith and moment 
With this regard, their currents turn awry, 
And lose the name of action. 



NO INTENT OF SUICIDE 

If, regardless of Hamlet's actually expressed purpose at 
this stage of the drama, we consider only his utter contempt 
of life and his previous thought of suicide, the soliloquy may 
seem, at first appearance, to be a meditation on self-destruc- 
tion and even rationalistic in tendency. Just criticism, how- 
ever, requires that it be read in relation to his present posi- 
tion and the object which now wholly engrosses his mind. 
Thus viewed it discloses that the Prince, far from being dis- 
posed to self-murder and rationalistic thought, is, on the con- 
trary, very Christian in mind and sentiment. Once, it is true, 
and only once in the First Act, did he really think of self- 
destruction. It was after his father's funeral, when the 
utter loneliness of his new position made his life seem pur- 
poseless; when the usurpation of Claudius and his mother's 
disgrace clouded his mind with dark suspicions, and steeped 
his afflicted soul in melancholy ; then it was that he felt ' ' how 
weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable are all the uses of this 
world," and as a consequence of that oppressive feeling came 
the tempting thought of suicide. But even then his mind 

[235] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act in. 

was fortified by Christian principles, which recognized the 
Creator's supremacy over life and death, and his will, yield- 
ing obedience to the moral law, conquered the foul temptation 
in the well known words : 

0, that the Everlasting had not fixed 
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! 

The supposition of suicide in the present instance as- 
sumes an inconsistency wholly foreign to Hamlet's position. 
It ignores the change that has come upon him after the ap- 
pearance of the ghost — a change which made life no longer 
purposeless. If once he desired to die, now he most desires to 
live. In life alone could he hope to execute the command im- 
posed upon him by his father's ghost, a command which he 
deemed most sacred, and was most eager to fulfil. In fidelity 
to his duty, he had already made it the one sole purpose of his 
life; "had wiped away all trivial fond records" that the 
commandment alone should live "within the book and volume 
of his brain." Unfaltering, therefore, in his purpose, he was 
even now, not dreaming of self-destruction, but seeking to 
find a way to the conscientious execution of his sworn "re- 
venge." His mind was anxiously intent upon one all- im- 
portant necessary project — the solution of the vexed ques- 
tion, — whether the ghost was truly his father's spirit; 
whether the command to ' ' revenge ' ' was from heaven or from 
hell ; and whether Claudius was in fact a fratricide. Having 
labored all the day with the actors on the tragedy to be en- 
acted before the King, he hoped by the same to settle his every 
doubt that very night. 

Weary after long hours of rehearsal, he is now entering 
the court in answer to the summons of his uncle. His eager- 
ness to "catch the conscience of the King" absorbs his 

[236] 



scene i. NO INTENT OF SUICIDE 

thoughts at the present moment to the exclusion of all else, 
and, dwelling in curiosity upon the probable result of the 
play, he feels most positive that Claudius will betray his 
guilt. If so, his path will be cleared, and he can take meas- 
ures to strike the avenging blow. Long meditation upon the 
revenge has, however, convinced him that he shall most prob- 
ably lose his life in the act. The King, he knows, suspects the 
real cause of his feigned madness, and distrusting him, is 
never seen without his royal bodyguard; and these he sees in 
fancy drawing their glittering swords to strike him down at 
the moment when he shall thrust his avenging blade through 
the heart of the "smiling damned villain." If he chance to 
escape with his life, he must face the judges of the realm — 
creatures of Claudius — who, pronouncing the sentence of 
death, shall condemn him, an assassin, guilty of high treason 
in an ambitious, murderous attempt to usurp the crown. 

He has come to realize vividly that there can be no escape 
for the slayer of the King. Hence amid the perilous circum- 
stances in which he moves, he sees that he can avenge his 
father's death, only by himself falling a sacrificial victim. 
It is precisely at the time when his mind is weighed down 
by this momentous thought that we hear him, book in hand, 
express himself in the wonderful soliloquy. There is then 
no thought of suicide. There is but the one thought that 
in all probability he must die, must sacrifice his life in the 
act of "revenge." This is clear from the first lines of the 
monologue : 

"To be, or not to be, — that is the question: 
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer 
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 
Or to take up arms against a sea of troubles, 
And by opposing end ihemV* 

[ 237 ] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

A DILEMMA 

The thought that strongly agitates the Prince's mind is 
clearly stated in the first line under the form of the dilemma, 
"To be, or not to be" — to live, or to die. Life or death is 
before him. The choice is momentous, and he alone must 
decide. Shall he choose to live on under present conditions, 
or shall he choose to sacrifice his life in the performance of 
the duty imposed upon him? Against the latter is a strong 
natural inclination, such as is intrinsic to every human being, 
and it prompts him to cling eagerly to life. The delight of 
mere living, which glows in his young heart, stirs his active 
nature to a peculiar horror of death. His revulsive feeling is 
no doubt the same as that which the Poet ascribes to Claudio, 
when urged by his sister to undergo death willingly : 

Isabella. Be ready, Claudio, for your death, to-morrow. 

What says my brother? 
Claudio. Death is a fearful thing. 
Isabella. And shamed life a hateful. 
Claudio. Ay, but to die, and go we Jknow not where ; 

To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot; 

This sensible warm motion to become, 

A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit 

To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside 

In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice; 

To be imprisoned in the viewless winds 

And blown with restless violence round about 

The Pendent world; or to be worse than worst 

Of those, that lawless and uncertain thoughts 

Imagine howling ! — 'tis too horrible ! 

The weariest and most loathed wordly life, 

That age, ache, penury and imprisonment 

Can lay on nature, is a paradise 

To what we fear of death. 

(Measure for Measure, Act III. Sc. 1.) 

Hamlet is, however, a far nobler and more Christian 
character than Claudio. A burning sense of wrong, inten- 
sified by the love of his father and an unyielding fidelity to 

[238] 



scene i. A DILEMMA 

his sworn resolve, impels him to avenge the murder, even 
though, in the act, he shall, as he foresees, probably lose his 
own life. Disturbed in feelings for the moment, and waver- 
ing in mind at the dilemma placed before him, he now inclines 
to one extreme, and now to another. Bravely struggling for 
light amid the encircling gloom of doubt, he resorts to rea- 
soning upon the problem, whether in his present position, 
death after all be not preferable to life. Of a lofty mind 
and exalted character, he seeks as usual the nobler act: 
"whether it is nobler in the mind" to cling to life, and to 
live on, indifferent to the "slings and arrows of outrageous 
fortune," or whether it is nobler to lose his life by taking 
"up arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end 
them." This latter and nobler alternative of the dilemma, 
which he implicitly accepts, clearly precludes all idea of self- 
destruction. The suicide, or self-murderer, does not take 
up arms against a sea of troubles, but, on the contrary, yields 
to them, and hopelessly and helplessly sinks beneath them by 
voluntary destroying his human life. Though given by the 
Creator as the greatest good, existence has, under adverse cir- 
cumstances or misfortune, seemingly become an unbearable 
burden ; and the suicide rejects and destroys it on the assump- 
tion that he will find in death a peaceful sleep in exchange 
for the insufferable evils of outrageous fortune. 

Such a false assumption is characteristic of the material- 
ist, or non-religious man, who believes neither in God, nor in 
the immortality of the soul, nor in future rewards and pun- 
ishments. Unaffected by the supernatural, either from ig- 
norance or from indifference to the fact that according to 
the probationary law of Divine Providence, "the life of man 
is a warfare on earth," the non-religious man, unillumined 
by the light of revealed truths, and untutored in heart by 
Christian morals, is devoid of the inspiring impulse of Chris- 

[239] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act hi. 

tian heroism. Hence driven back upon himself, he finds his 
sole strength in the weak morals of an enervating paganism, 
in whose blighting civilization, self-murder is sometimes an 
honorable expedient, and not a disgraceful act of cowardice. 

In Hamlet's higher Christian civilization, suicide was, 
however, held in execration. It is not only unchristian, but 
even an unmanly act, which indicates a weak and pusillanimous 
mind and craven spirit, by reason of which a man fails to 
battle against adverse winds and storms, and cowardly sinks, 
a willing victim in the turbulent waters of the sea of life. 
Every true Christian will on the contrary, as shown by ex- 
perience, rather bear like Hamlet, the ills he has "than fly 
to others he knows not of". 

The cowardice of the suicide is, therefore, no trait of the 
character of the Christian Hamlet. No thought of yielding to 
the storm enters his mind either in the one or other alterna- 
tive of the dilemma. The one alternative, which means his 
continued existence with an acquiescence in accomplished 
facts, by a disregard of his uncle's crime, of his mother's dis- 
grace, and of the wrongs done himself and the state, seems 
ignoble and too abhorrent even for a passing thought; and, 
therefore, his mind, always enamored of lofty ideals and 
mastered by the love of moral good, turns at once without 
hesitation to the other and only alternative, even though it 
means his probable death in the conflict "against a sea of 
troubles." If he himself must brave death in the act 
of striking down the well-guarded criminal, so be it! 
It is the nobler and, therefore, will be his. How great 
so ever be the sea of troubles in which he feels himself 
immersed, he deems it nobler to battle without fear against 
howling winds and seething surging waters, and to brave like a 
hero, the violence of the storm and the roaring rage of the en- 
gulfing breakers. Hence the thought of death vividly before 

[240] 



scene i. "NOT DEAD BUT SLEEPING" 

him, not as an abstract idea, but in the concrete, as 
actually imminent and affecting himself, he naturally queries, 
after death what then? The question gives birth to a new 
train of thoughts in which, as is his wont, he philosophizes on 
its effects both here and hereafter : 

"To die: to sleep; 
No more; and by a sleep to say we end 
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks 
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation 
Devoutly to be wished." 

"NOT DEAD BUT SLEEPING" 

Meditating on the word "to die" and generalizing the 
idea, he dwells on the notion that death is a sleep. It is pecul- 
iarly a Christian idea. One is truly said to sleep, when, though 
dead, he shall be awakened, or restored again to life. Hence, 
the Savior said of Lazarus and of the daughter of Jairus, 
' ' They are not dead, but sleeping. ' ' Though dead to men, they 
were only sleeping; because it was the fixed purpose of the 
Son of God, to awaken them from the sleep of death, and re- 
store them to human life. The Christian, therefore, who, on 
the authority of Divine Revelation, firmly believes in the re- 
surrection of the body on the final day of general judgment, 
also firmly believes that death is only a sleep — the last sleep 
— before the final awakening of the body to a new and eternal 
life. This consoling idea is emphasized in St. Paul's letter to 
the early Christians, in which he exhorts them: "Be not sor- 
rowful concerning them that sleep in the Lord, as the pagans 
who have no hope of the resurrection." 1 

Devoid of this hope, pagans were accustomed to inscribe 
on the tombs of their dead the words "Hie Jacet," while 
Christians, imbued with the supernatural hope of the resur- 
rection, invariably inscribed on their monuments, as still seen 

1 Thes. 4, 12. 

[241] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act in. 

in the catacombs, the words "Hie Dormit." For the same 
reason, cremation, which was a favorite practice with the pag- 
ans, as it is to-day with many who have no Christian belief in 
the general resurrection of the dead, has been ever most ab- 
horrent to the Christian mind. In fact, from the earliest days, 
the Church in harmony with Divine Revelation, has devoted 
the word "to sleep," as used in her prayers, and liturgies, and 
funeral rites, as synonymous with death; and, accordingly, 
she consigns the earthly remains of her faithful children to 
consecrated ground, which from apostolic days, she has called 
cemeteries, or sleeping grounds; because in these silent cities 
of the dead, her children rest in peaceful sleep, awaiting the 
fulfilment of the promise of their God. 

This idea of death as a sleep, is so common and so firmly 
rooted in Christian minds, that some at times, when overpow- 
ered by sorrows and afflictions, have prayed God to summon 
them home, that they might find rest from their bodily suffer- 
ings. It seems to hold Hamlet's mind in the sentence quoted 
above ; for his thought is then wholly concentered, not on the 
soul, but on the body merely. The intolerable evils which op- 
press him, prompt his Christian mind to think of death, which 
will rid him of bodily sufferings; of death whose peaceful 
slumber will end "the heart-ache and the thousand natural 
shocks that flesh is heir to. ' ' But such a wish is in strict con- 
formity with Christian Faith, and accordingly Hamlet ex- 
claims, ' ' 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished, ' ' that is 
devoutly, or religiously in conformity with the will of God. 

The Christian view of death as a sleep from which we 
shall again awaken, is a strong caveat against the Materialist 
and the Positivist, who fain would see in the dramatist a 
champion of their anti-Christian principles. Their teaching 
stands in open contradiction to that of Shakespeare. They 
deny the existence of God, Divine Revelation, and the future 

[242] 



SCENE I 



NOT DEAD BUT SLEEPING' 



life, affirming that the grave is the annihilation of man, whose 
soul at death ceases existence, and whose body entombed re- 
turns forever to its primal material elements; while the Poet 
in opposition adheres to the Christian principles of Divine 
Revelation, which inculcate truths wholly destructive of Mat- 
erialistic and Positivistic theories. Even should an un-Chris- 
tian doubt flash for an instant through Hamlet's mind, it 
would no more make him a Positivist, than would an atheistic 
thought, flashing upon a Christian, make him an atheist. 

In the use of the word "to say" Hamlet shows that he does 
not consider death to be a sleep in the Positivistic sense ; for 
to a philosophic mind like his, a supposition whose sole founda- 
tion is "they say," can have little weight. Furthermore, 
against these theorists, he has already professed his firm be- 
lief in the immortality of the soul when in the First Act, he 
assured Horatio of his fearlessness in presence of the ghost: 

"Why, what should be the fear? 
I do not set my life at a pin's fee; 
And for my soul, what can it do to that, 
Being a thing immortal as itself? 

He, moreover, gives another and more emphatic proof of 
his belief in the soul's immortality in the thought which im- 
mediately follows in the same soliloquy. We give the modern 
as well as the original text of 1603 in parallel columns, as the 
one elucidates the other : 



Original Text of 1603 

For in that dream of death, when we awake, 
And borne before an everlasting judge, 
Prom whence no passenger ever returned, 
The undiscovered country at whose sight; 
The happy smile and the accursed damn'd. 
But for this, the joyful hope of this, 



Modern Composite Text 

For in that sleep of death what dreams may 

come 
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, 
Must give us pause : 

There's the respect 
That makes calamity of so long a life; 



Who'd bear the scorns and flattery of the For who would bear the whips and scorns of 
world, etc. time, etc. 



243] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

THE DREAD OF SOMETHING AFTER DEATH 

From the thought of death as a peaceful sleep of the body, 
Hamlet, imbued with Christian principles, readily turns his 
gaze to the spiritual and immortal element of man's complex 
nature. His words are a positive disproof of the Materialistic 
dream that the grave is the end-all of man, both of soul and 
body. With Hamlet, the soul, after shuffling off its tenement 
of flesh, shall not sink like the body into a sleep which ends in 
the corruption of the grave ; sleep is proper to material things 
alone, and therefore man's immaterial and spiritual soul can 
know in life and in death neither sleep nor inactivity. Shall 
its fate, then, be perchance to dream ? But to dream implies 
activity, and activity necessarily involves existence. Suppos- 
ing then, as Hamlet does, the continued existence of the soul 
after it has shed its chrysalis of clay, he dwells on the cause 
of that ' ' dread of something after death, ' ' which is common to 
mankind. It is the passing into that "undiscovered country" 
of the spirit world, "whence no traveller returns" to live 
again his human life on earth, and where, "borne before an 
Everlasting Judge, ' ' the soul shall hear its sentence of justifi- 
cation or of reprobation. 

In that "undiscovered country," of which we know so lit- 
tle, "the happy" are said to "smile," because of their happy 
reward for a virtuous life ; and i ' the damned" are ' ' accursed, ' ' 
because of their crimes. We are, moreover, assured that, buoy- 
ed up by this hope of future happiness, or deterred by the 
dread of future punishment, men commonly prefer to bear 
"the whips and scorns of time," rather than to fly to other 
evils that they know not of in human life. These hopes and 
fears, while expressed in the original text, are left to inference 
in the modern version in which Hamlet dwells on the ' ' dread 
of something after death " — on the penalties that may affect 

[244] 



scene i. DREAD OF SOMETHING 

the soul when ushered into that undiscovered country — rath- 
er than on ' ' the happy smile ' ' of the blessed ; for the former, 
owing to his present circumstances, are at the moment more in 
conformity with his state of mind and feelings. If St. Paul 
could say: "I am not conscious to myself of any thing: yet 

1 am not hereby justified." 2 Hamlet, surely, in the presence 
of his sworn resolve to take the life of Claudius, had reason to 
fear that, he himself perishing in the act, his soul on awaken- 
ing in the spirit world, would be borne tainted by human blood 
before the tribunal of the "Everlasting Judge." His fear 
was well founded; since at present he had no proof of his 
uncle's guilt, save the untrustworthy word of a ghost, who 
might probably be a hell-sent messenger of evil. In the 
meanwhile, earnestly seeking light, he prefers to bear "the 
oppressor's wrong, the insolence of office, and the laws delay," 
— not a delay, which in his circumstances is most needful, in 
order "to report his cause aright," and to "have grounds 
more relative" than doubts and suspicions. Hence his hand 
is stayed by the moral pressure of his Christian conscience, 
which dictates that to strike before he has allayed the doubt 
of his uncle's guilt, is to hazard a blow, which is inexcusable 
and criminal. The fear, therefore, that he may fall in the act 
of "revenge" with the guilt of blood upon his soul, "gives 
him pause," and is "the respect that makes calamity of so 
long a life." It is a conscientious fear based on supernatural 
Christian faith, and is the prime influence which has so far 
restrained him in the drama. 

The fact that non-Catholic critics of various beliefs, ig- 
nore or overlook the supernatural element in Hamlet's re- 
straining fear, is no doubt the cause of their many divergent 
views and difficulties concerning this soliloquy. If these crit- 
ics, for the most part, be unacquainted with Catholic teach- 

2 1 Cor. 4, 4. 

[245] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

ings of Faith and morals, it is clear that they will meet with 
difficulties on matters which are almost self evident to every 
educated Catholic. This ignoring of the supernatural faith 
which underlies the character of Hamlet, and animates his 
words and actions, only deepens the mystery of the drama, and 
makes it forever inexplicable. One may enter a grand cathe- 
dral, admire its magnificence of architecture, the long drawn 
nave of lofty columns and vaulting arches, the wondrous apse, 
the superb sculptures and paintings, and the glories of the 
many blending colors of windows rich in artistic emblems, 
and be blind all the while to the deep spiritual meaning which 
underlies their supernatural symbolism. To the spectator who 
is ignorant of the inspiring Catholic Faith that gave them 
birth, the grand structure remains a sealed book ; and its mys- 
terious types, figures, and mystic embellishments speak to him 
in accents of an unknown tongue. 

The Faith which constructed these glorious monuments 
is the Faith of Hamlet, the Faith which moulded his noble 
character, enriched his gifted mind with grand supernatural 
truths, and quickened his manly heart to the love of virtue. 
Hence knowing the real value of material, transient things, he 
sets the eternal above the temporal; and while not caring "a, 
pin's fee" for his mortal life, he is all concerned for the 
eternal lot of his soul in its immortal life beyond the grave. 
Death is to him the portal opening to nobler and vaster 
spheres ; and our fleeting years, only the prelude to an unend- 
ing existence which shall be, as we will, either of eternal bliss, 
or of irreparable despair. 

CONSCIENCE THE ORACLE OF GOD 

Turning from his own mental state, Hamlet now glides in 
philosophic mood from the particular to the universal. Men 
in common feel an instinctive fear of death, and if exceptions 

[246] 



scene i. THE ORACLE OF GOD 

be found, it is in those who would gladly welcome death, in 
order to be rid of sufferings and afflictions. Proceeding to 
generalize, he enumerates in classes the varied sufferings, that 
men bear from the same motive as his own ; namely, from fear, 
or " dread of something after death." He reasons that as a 
conscientious fear of the hereafter, restrains him from striking 
the blow of revenge, which in all probability will cost him his 
life, and usher his soul into "that undiscovered country," 
where he must face the "Everlasting Judge," so the same 
potent fear ' ' puzzles, ' ' or enervates the will even of men who 
wish to die, and palsies their hand in its death-dealing stroke 
against the "canon of the Almighty." This fear, therefore, 
which is dictated by a Christian's conscience, illuminated by 
supernatural faith, he logically concludes is the repelling ele- 
ment which makes cowards of us all. 

Is Hamlet then a coward ? Yes, surely, if fidelity to con- 
science is synonymous with cowardice. But fidelity to con- 
science springs from moral courage. A little reflection on the 
terms "conscience," and "coward," and "us all," discloses 
that in this soliloquy as in others, when, under passionate 
feelings of resentment, he berates himself in various ignomin- 
ious terms, we should look at the real and true Hamlet, rather 
than at his morbid self -accusations. In the words, "us all," 
are no doubt included all Christians, who inspired like him- 
self by Christian faith and influenced by its code of rectitude, 
have a conscientious fear of violating the moral law of God. 
All others, therefore, are excluded : unbelievers of every class 
who, blind to the Christian light of faith, and, uninfluenced by 
its ennobling code of morals, dwell in outer darkness. They 
live in a fallen nature unregenerated, and are_devoid of a 
salutary fear of God's law. In irreligious blindness, such are 
wont to dream vain dreams : they imagine that the grave is the 
ultimate goal of man, both of his perishable body and his 

[247] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act hi. 

indestructible spiritual soul. Hence beyond their horizon all 
seems nothingness and, in consequence, they fall easy victims 
to life's fitful fever, and the passing ills that flesh is heir to. 
It appears from the context that Hamlet employs the 
word "conscience," not as some suppose, as a term synony- 
mous, with thought or speculation, or even consciousness, 
but as a philosopher, in its specific and ethical significa- 
tion. Conscience thus accepted, means the intellectual faculty 
of the soul employed in the consideration of an act in relation 
to moral rectitude or depravity. In its very origin, the word 
implies a double or joint knowledge ; the one of the natural or 
Divine Law, and the other of man's own action in conformity 
or difformity with that same law. Thus considered, con- 
science is the voice of God, the herald of His law, and our guide 
in every moral act: 

"Whatever creed be taught, or land be trod, 
Man's conscience is the oracle of God." 

A dictate of conscience is then an intellectual act, or judg- 
ment of our reason concerning the good or evil of something, 
which a man is solicited to do or not to do. It does not deter- 
mine the nature and difference between good and evil in gen- 
eral, or in the abstract ; it only determines the good and evil 
relation of a particular act to him who is solicited to do it 
under given circumstances, and imperatively commands him, 
by reason of his moral obligation, to do the one and to refrain 
from the other. As a consequence, obedience to this dictate 
of reason, or judgment of conscience, brings ease and quiet of 
mind; whilst disobedience begets uneasiness and remorse. 
While Wolsey served his king better than his God, he was 
never free from the stings of conscience ; but when, after real- 
izing 

"how wretched 

Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favors,'' 

[248] 



scene in. THE ORACLE OF GOD 

he began to serve his God better than his king, the Poet de- 
scribes the change which was wrought upon his conscience : 

11 Never so truly happy, my good Cromwell. 
I know myself now; and I feel within me 
A peace above all earthly dignities, 
A still and quiet conscience. ' ' 

When Richard III. was roused to a sense of guilt by his 
ghostly visitors, his conscience caused him to exclaim in fear : 

"My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, 
And every tongue brings in a several tale, 
And every tale condemns me for a villain." 

(V. 3.) 

In the same tragedy the thought of the judgment day 
troubles the conscience of one of the murderers, when about 
to assassinate the duke of Clarence : 

Sec. Murd. The urging of that word " judgment" hath 
bred a kind of remorse in me. 

First Murd. I thought thou hadst been resolute. 

Sec. Murd. 'Faith, some certain dregs of conscience are 
yet within me. It is a dangerous thing; it makes a 
man a coward; a man cannot steal, but it accuseth 
him; he cannot swear, but it checks him; 'tis a blush- 
ing shamef ast spirit that mutinies in a man 's bosom ; it 
fills one full of obstacles." (I. 4.) 

It was the same with Hamlet; his conscience caused the 
superman to fight against the man when the latter urged him 
to slay Claudius before he had any positive and tangible proof 
of his guilt. The rebellious man might call the superman a 
coward, but such a cowardice was a bravery that armed him 
with prudence and fortitude against the perpetration of a 
probable murder. 

COURAGE OR COWARDICE 

Conscience, which induces a fear of the punitive sanction 
of the law, whether human or divine, is a salutary check, and 

[249] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act m. 

its warning creates a caution, which implies, not cowardice, 
but courage to repress lawless passions and rebellious appet- 
ites. Hence, infidelity to conscience unmasks the coward, 
while fidelity discloses a manhood inspired with noble prow- 
ess. An habitual fidelity to conscience " inspires a man," says 
Milton, "with a gallant fearless courage, which tempered with 
precepts of true fortitude and patience, turns into a native 
and heroic valor and makes him hate the cowardice of doing 
wrong." Such a conscientious man, whether riding on the 
wings of prosperity, or enshrouded in the gloom of adversity, 
will with unfaltering courage prove himself sublimely un- 
afraid. Moral courage is a far nobler quality than physical. 
It is solely characteristic of human kind. It alone forms the 
basis of man's moral life, which consists in the conformity of 
his actions with the law of conscience ; and the more he unites 
in himself both physical and moral courage, the more his char- 
acter approaches perfection. 

That such a union exists in Hamlet, appears from the 
Poet's high accentuation of the one trait and the other. His 
hero values his physical life at less than "a pin's fee ;" moves 
through the drama, fearless of danger ; encounters the appall- 
ing spectre and follows its beckoning; exposes himself from 
day to day to the treacherous wiles of the cunning usurper; 
braves in fearless counterplot his perfidious design to murder 
him by proxy; dares in desperate valor to leap alone aboard 
the grappling ship of the pirates; accepts without fear the 
challenge from the King in spite of warnings of treachery and 
evil ; and in fine, furiously defying the royal guards and court- 
iers, breaks through their defence, to pierce the heart 
of the cowering criminal. If all these and similar occur- 
rences prove that the Poet 's design was to portray in Hamlet a 
hero whose personal bravery was undaunted in every danger, 
and against all odds, there are other proofs that show his fur- 

[ 250 ] 



scene i. ENTERPRISES OF GREAT MOMENT 

ther design to picture him with moral courage, which makes 
him loyal and unswerving to conscientious duty. 

As the Wise Man, Hamlet believes that "he that ruleth 
his spirit is better than he that taketh cities." His remark- 
able courage is engendered by the righteous fear of committing 
crime, and this ' ' fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom 
— is the fullness of wisdom — is the crown of wisdom, a wis- 
dom which distributes knowledge and understanding of prud- 
ence, and exalts the glory of him who possesses it." 3 His glory, 
therefore, is the testimony of a good conscience. Aware that 
as a man treats his conscience here, so it will deal with him in 
the hereafter; aware that at the bar of the "incorruptible 
Judge," the testimony of his conscience shall be the sole 
umpire of his eternal fate, Hamlet had indeed under present 
circumstances, strong rational grounds for uneasiness of mind. 

ENTERPRISES OF GREAT PITH AND MOMENT 

The closing lines of the soliloquy offer other refutations 
of the supposition entertained by certain critics that Hamlet 
contemplates the act of self -slaughter : 

"And thus the native hue of resolution 
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; 
And enterprises of great pith and moment 
With this regard their currents turn awry, 
And lose the name of action. " 

In these words we have an explicit reference to a fixed 
resolve. Is the term to be interpreted, as some say, to mean 
a resolve of self-destruction? Clearly not: there is nothing 
in the whole drama to show that Hamlet had at any time 
resolved to take his own life. In a former Act, he at once 
rejected even the thought of suicide, because to his Christian 
mind, it was contrary to the law of God; nor, furthermore, 

3 "Ecclesiasticus", 1. 

[251] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act hi. 

is there anything to indicate that he afterwards entertained 
the thought, and resolved upon it. Since his " resolution,' " 
therefore, does not mean a resolve to suicide, there remains 
possible but one other interpretation, which, indeed, seems 
clear to every mind not biased by the preconceived and un- 
supported theory of suicide. 

Hamlet's "resolution" necessarily implies some resolve 
he had already taken, but which he now hesitates to carry out, 
and that this resolve is his sworn purpose to avenge the mur- 
der of his father, the drama clearly reveals on almost every 
page. It is the one sole resolve at all times before his eyes; 
upon it his thoughts are ever concentrated ; to its fulfilment 
he has solemnly devoted his energies and his life; and even 
now he has in hand a project which he hopes will remove the 
difficulty in his path. The "resolution," however, at the 
present moment is "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of 
thought," because, in the contemplation of the deed of "re- 
venge," he foresees that he himself shall most likely fall; 
hence he dwells upon the thought; meditates upon "to be or 
not to be, ' ' upon existence or non-existence ; since it is not to 
him a matter of indifference, whether or not he himself shall 
perish in the contest. This want of indifference to life or 
death is the prime factor of the whole soliloquy, and gives 
rise to the pros and cons of its development. 

If the term "resolution" does not mean his sworn resolu- 
tion of "revenge," it can only mean a resolve to suicide; but 
this alternative, though already shown to be inadmissable, is 
further made untenable by the words of Hamlet himself, when 
he affirms that his "resolution" is an "enterprise of great 
pith and moment." Such an enterprise, however, is not 
suicide ; self-destruction, by which a man in cowardice yields 
unresisting to the storms of life, and in a timidity born of a 
craven spirit, seeks to evade in death the evils which oppress 

[252] 



scene i. A RATIONALIST'S OBJECTION 

him, rather than with manful courage to battle vigorously 
against them, cannot by any jugglery of words, be called an 
"enterprise of great pith and moment." Something more 
than shirking a burden, something more than sinking to rest 
from care and trouble, is demanded to justify the use of the 
emphatic phrase, and the only "resolution" which can verify 
and justify the import and emphasis of the words, is his sworn 
resolve of "revenge." 

Such a resolution implies, indeed, as no other, an "enter- 
prise of great pith and moment. ' ' To avenge the foul murder 
of his idolized father ; to unveil to public gaze the villainy of 
the secret criminal; to snatch the crown from his brow, and 
hurl from the throne a bloody, lecherous usurper ; to rouse from 
her moral lethargy a mother whose conscience has been blunted 
by a life of shame; to purify a corrupted court from the 
tainted atmosphere of foul sycophants; — all this, beyond 
doubt, is and must be called an "enterprise of great pith and 
moment, ' ' — an enterprise which from the vivid contemplation 
of his own want of indifference to loss of life, and to the un- 
certain fate that may await him in the spirit world, "is 
sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought and loses the name 
of action." 

A RATIONALIST'S OBJECTION 

A German Rationalist* and follower of the subjective 
school, in commenting on this soliloquy, says : ' ' Hamlet is not 
free-minded enough to do violence to his conscience which for- 
bids suicide." We feel grateful for this open admission; it 
unwittingly aligns the professor against skeptics^ rationalists, 
infidels and materialists who have at times attempted to 
prove that Hamlet was their own. Of these different schools 
of Freethinkers, Addison humorously remarks: "Atheist is 

4 Gervinus, "Shakespeare Commentaries, Hamlet". 

[253] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act in. 

an old fashioned word. I'm a Freethinker." Every man 
enjoys freedom of thought, as freely as the air he breathes; 
but every thought is not necessarily true, and Freethinkers, 
notwithstanding their boasted freedom, are known to be the 
slaves of many errors. 

It is a fallacy to assume that freedom to think as we 
please, gives us power to fashion truth as we please; sub- 
jective thought is one thing, and another is its actual and ob- 
jective reality; and, therefore, since thoughts are subjective, 
they are necessarily true or false, according as they conform 
or not to the objective truth, or reality of things.. Truth and 
not freedom is the proper object of the intellect, and its pos- 
session gives freedom, while error blinds and enslaves the 
mind: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make 
you free." Freethinking is one of the many isms consequent 
upon the religious revolution of the 16th century. The "Re- 
formers" made private judgment the basic principle of re- 
ligion, and its logical development is seen in the different 
classes of Freethinkers, who reject Christianity, as well as 
all revealed religion under every form; deny human and 
divine authority; and have no faith in God, nor in the im- 
mortality of the soul, nor in a future life. Hamlet in opposi- 
tion, as appears from the drama, professes belief in all these 
doctrines. 

Freethinkers are akin to anarchists : both claim untram- 
melled freedom from control of any kind, a claim so obvious* 
ly opposed to common sense and experience, as to place it 
under the ban of right reason. The freest of mankind is 
subject to innumerable restrictions under greater or less 
penalties; the most assertive libertine of thought finds limi- 
tations within and without on every side. He must observe 
the laws of thought (or logic) under pain of unintelligibility ; 
he must, even after rejecting the infallible word of God, sub- 

[254] 



scene i. A RATIONALIST'S OBJECTION 

mit to fallible human testimony, or remain grossly ignorant, 
and, in fine, how great soever his intellectual pride, he must 
admit himself to be circumscribed in knowledge by a limita- 
tion, which arises from the finiteness of his nature and mental 
powers. 

A Freethinker, like an anarchist, revels in false notions 
of human liberty. Liberty is not license ; liberty is not the 
freedom of a madman ; liberty is not the power to do wrong, 
nor to adhere to falsehood, nor to err from the path of justice. 
Liberty, says Cardinal Manning, means freedom from sin and 
falsehood, which fetter men's minds; from fallible human 
teachers that err and lead to error. True liberty is freedom 
from all corporal and spiritual tyranny of man over man ; it 
is the liberation of the whole man with all his faculties, his 
intellect, his heart, his will, and his affections. Never was 
there true liberty before Christianity, and never shall there be 
when Christianity shall cease to enlighten the government of 
men. 

The Professor complains that Hamlet does not "do 
violence to his conscience. ' ' A strange objection, indeed, to 
all save Freethinkers, who profess laxity of morals in the 
Christian sense, both in theory and in practice ; and stranger 
still, when we reflect that a man who violates his conscience, 
acts against his rational nature, rejects the light of truth 
which reason offers him, and becomes the slave of error and 
of passion. Conscience is the intellectual faculty, which dis- 
tinguishes right from wrong, and directs man's free will in 
the choice of good and the avoidance of evil. In following 
its guidance, man exercises his rational freedom; but when, 
rebellious against the voice of conscience, or the light of 
reason, he yields himself a slave to error, or to blind instincts 
or passions of his animal nature, he obliterates in the very 

[255] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

act, the distinctive mark between himself and the brute crea- 
tion. Hamlet, however, was truly free-minded, because he 
was neither a slave of error nor of passion. A lover of truth, 
he enjoyed the freedom which it brings, and, illumined by 
the light of reason and religion, followed the voice of con- 
science, which bade him beware of committing a crime 
against his own rational nature, as well as against the law of 
God. 

Again, the Professor in rationalistic spirit complains that 
" moral and intellectual considerations, conscience, and 
thought, are drags upon Hamlet's power of action/ 7 Drags, 
they surely are upon the power of committing a rash action, 
which, in Hamlet 's present light, can seem nothing more than 
probable murder. This fact, though objected to by non- 
Christian men, is, nevertheless, the very trait in Hamlet's 
character, which ennobles and endears him to every Christian 
mind. These "drags," or restraints imposed upon human 
conduct by the moral law of conscience, are absolutely neces- 
sary, if man would be in fact, a social being, as nature has in- 
tended. These moral drags are barriers against lawlessness 
and anarchy, and without them there can nourish no political 
and social life. If their observance makes men good and 
desirable citizens, their disregard creates criminals, multi- 
plies prisons, and arms every man against his neighbor. A 
man who ignores conscience is a menace to his f ellowmen : he 
is fit for treason, stratagems, and crimes. Highly commend- 
able, therefore, to the Christian, if not to the rationalistic 
mind, must be Hamlet's action, when in obediance to the law 
of morals, made known to him by the voice of conscience, he 
resisted and subdued the blind impulse of the man of his low- 
er nature against the superman's prudential dictates of rea- 
son and religion. 

[256] 



scene i. A CRITIC 

NO FRIAR LAURENCE 

Turning from Gervinus to another professor of a spirit 
more aggressive, we come to a commentator who, though less 
rationalistic and, perhaps, professing some form of Chris- 
tianity, soils the pages of his work with unbecoming and often 
unwarranted attacks upon the olden Church. In commenting 
on the famous soliloquy in question, he ventures the follow- 
ing aspersions : 

11 There is no Friar Laurence in this play. To him the 
Catholic children of Verona carried their troubles and re- 
ceived from their Father comfort and counsel. Hamlet is 
hardly the man to seek for wisdom or for succor from a 
priest. Let them resolve his doubts about the soul, about 
immortality, about God first. But Shakespeare has taken 
care to show us in the effete society of Denmark, where 
everything needs renewal, what religion is, a religion which 
makes Hamlet an aimless wanderer after truth." (Dow- 
den, Shakespeare, His mind and Art, p. 136.) 

These gratuitous remarks expose a rancorous spirit, 
which evidently swerved the Professor from the even tenor 
of his way, for the purpose of casting even inopportunely a 
few darts at the religion which Hamlet loved and professed. 
The principle that the end justifies the means, may sway a 
commentator, whose object is to gain the favor of a certain 
class of readers, whose ears he hopes to tickle by pandering 
to their prejudices; but a rational critic is justly supposed, 
in condemnation of such practices, to be free-minded enough 
to divest himself of musty and biased judgments. To merit 
the attention of discerning readers, he should like a judge, 
rise superior to idiosyncratic views and personal prejudices, 
in order to interpret impartially the works of a world-re- 
nowned dramatist, who himself, uncircumscribed by time, 
place, and conditions, frowned on all narrowness either in 
the intellectual or religious world. Nothing blurs men 's men- 

[257] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act hi. 

tal vision more than a subjective bias of mind, and this bias 
seems to have caused the Professor's failure to fathom the 
character of Hamlet, and to read it aright on the subject in 
question. In proof hereof, let us weigh his remarks seriatim : 

" There is no Friar Laurence in this play." 

True, nor is there a Friar in many another of Shake- 
speare's plays; for the simple reason that none is called for. 
In desiring Friar Laurence to be multiplied in the Poet's dra- 
mas, does not the Professor suddenly forget his often mani- 
fested dislike of Friars and of the Faith which they pro- 
fessed? Shakespeare was too great a master of the dramatic 
art to conform to the Professor's wish. He realized the axiom 
that ' ' variety is the spice of life ; ' ' and, therefore, refrained 
from introducing a Friar, how estimable soever in character, 
into each of his dramas. Such an uncalled for multiplication 
of Friars would moreover tend, not to enhance, but to dimin- 
ish popular interest in his plays with audiences which, like 
the Professor, were strongly anti-Catholic. 

If in Borneo and Juliet, the Poet has strikingly displayed 
his love for religious men, by luminously portraying in Friar 
Laurence a beautiful and winning character most estimable 
for his charity and self-forgetfulness, his portrayal is in har- 
mony with the original story; but, no doubt, perceiving how 
exotic a plant a Friar would seem in the drama of Hamlet, 
if transplanted from sunny Italy to the still wild and chilling 
regions of a dissipated Northern court, he preferred to ad- 
here to the mythical pagan legend in which there is no pos- 
sible Friar. The critic is, furthermore, unfortunate in his 
objection, from forgetfulness of the fact that the same reli- 
gion which could fashion in Verona, as the Poet shows, so 
lovable a character as Friar Laurence, could, of course, also 

[ 258 ] 



scene i. NO FRIAR LAURENCE 

duplicate him at Elsinore under similar favorable conditions. 
The Professor continues : 

"To him (Friar Laurence) the Catholic children of 
Verona carried their troubles and received from their 
Father comfort and counsel. Hamlet is hardly the man to 
seek for wisdom and succor from a priest." 

That Romeo and Juliet turned to the Friar for comfort 
in their troubles, and for guidance in their perplexities, was 
only a natural impulse, which prompts a man in difficulties 
to lean upon a trusted friend. From childhood they had 
learned to know the Friar's wisdom, charity, and disinterest- 
edness, and their young hearts had come to love, and to con- 
fide in him. Under their sunny skies, religious as well as 
social life differed far from that of the austere regions of 
the Northern lights. In the latter, Christianity was still 
struggling ; in the former, she had swayed for centuries. In 
her schools noble youth were accustomed to learn from the 
lips of priest or Friar, the wisdom and knowledge of a Chris- 
tian civilization, and could not fail to admire virtuous lives, 
and to realize that in their tutors, whether priest or Friar, 
they would find their friend, best councilor, and guide. But 
Elsinore was not a Verona, nor Hamlet a Romeo. Herein 
is manifest the dramatic skill of the artist and his consist- 
ency in the portrayal of characters so divergent. Romeo's 
warm effusion is in striking contrast with the severe reserve 
of Hamlet, and indicates a nature as different as is the tropic 
from the arctic zone. 

Light was the character of the youth of the South, a 
creature of circumstances, open, confiding, impassioned, and 
effusive with the glowing warmth of his sunny clime; but 
grave, melancholy, and unconfiding was the youth of the 
leaden skies of the North. Unimpassioned in character, dis- 
trustful, meditative, deeply penetrating, and accustomed to 

[259] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act hi. 

retire within himself, he sought to master unaided the prob- 
lem which perplexed him. If the noisy shallow brooklet bab- 
bles its story to the world, the mighty stream profound, ruf- 
fled in surface, or lashed by gale or storm, flows on in a silent, 
solemn calm undisturbed in depths below. The calm and 
depth of Hamlet 's Character was due to his master-mind, and 
to his perfect control of his emotions and his passions. His 
powerful intellect, so reflexive and so philosophic, read by a 
luminous penetrating glance, as in an open book, every char- 
acter that passed before him, and discerned their motive 
springs of action, their foibles and their failures, and their 
designs and artifices. His reflective soul in the gloom of 
oppressing difficulties recoiled upon itself and, shutting out 
the external world, brooded upon causes, effects, and all pos- 
sible consequences. If in these melancholy musings he per- 
sistently rejected every thought or impulse to consult a third 
party, would it not seem strange and contradictory in a char- 
acter so deeply rooted in silence and reserve, to confide to a 
priest or Friar the dreadful secret of which he would not 
even whisper a suspicion to Horatio, the one tried and trusted 
friend, whom he promised to "wear in his heart's core, aye, 
in his heart of heart ' ' ? 

This guarded reticence of Hamlet which results from 
his characteristic disposition, is further strengthened by the 
nature of his doubts. While certain of the reality of the 
ghostly vision, he has reasonable motives for questioning its 
identity and veracity. These he perceives can be verified, 
not by consultation with priest or layman, but only by 
1 ■ catching the conscience of the King ; ' ' and for this he has 
already in hand a well prepared plan. Moreover, Hamlet's 
guarded reticence, as contrasted with the effusiveness of 
Romeo, was necessary; since the Poet designed to give a 
different artistic effect to the two plays, and this required a 

[260] 



scene i. RESOLVE HIS DOUBTS 

different treatment. Having made Hamlet melancholic and 
burdened him with a harrowing task, the dramatist found it 
expedient to involve him in a tragic atmosphere of gloom 
and disturbance of mind, and such a state precluded the 
presence of a priestly counselor or guide. The Professor, 
therefore, instead of complaining that the Prince does not 
seek the guidance of a priest in his difficulties, should rather 
admire the Poet's skill in adhering to consistency in the por- 
trayal of Hamlet's character. 

LET PRIESTS RESOLVE HIS DOUBTS 

Again the Professor says : 

"Let them (the priests) resolve his doubts first about 
the soul, about immortality, and about God." 

But there is nothing in the drama to show that Hamlet 
doubts about the soul, or immortality, or God. Hence, every 
Christian reader will feel impelled to enter a protest against 
these unworthy insinuations, which are based upon the as- 
sumption that the primal principles of Christianity were in 
the mind of Hamlet enclouded with doubt, and that learned 
ministers of the Church could not solve these doubts if they 
would. These bare assumptions are unsupported by the text. 

There is no doubt concerning the period of time in which 
Shakespeare's Hamlet lived. By multiplied incidents and 
phrases, the Poet emphasizes this period as the early years of 
the eleventh century, and introduces us for the first time 
to the Prince on his return from school in Germany, where 
he for long imbibed the waters of wisdom at the fountain 
seats of Christian learning; for as already shown, no others 
existed in Germany at that period. Within these schools, 
where the name of infidel, or agnostic, or materialist was as 
odious as that of the "unspeakable Turk", tutors, rich in phil- 

[261] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act in. 

osophic lore, not only shared with eager pupils their know- 
ledge of Aristotle, 5 bnt also labored to imbue their minds 
with those grand truths of Christianity which, grounded 
on principles eternal and immutable, and supported by 
rational arguments, have withstood all sophistry, and swayed 
at all times the master-minds of every sphere of life. 

Returning from these halls of wisdom to his rude native 
land, the Prince, as conspicuous as a lone sturdy oak in a 
desert wild, moved amid his less civilized people, a cultured 
gentleman of high mental attainments and moral refinement, 
which placed him more than a century in advance of condi- 
tions then prevailing among semi- Christian Northmen. Mov- 
ing amid the social life of a contaminated court, he appears 
in the drama a polished man of grand mental gifts, a phil- 
osopher of lofty ideals, who, moreover, far from doubting, 
is imbued with the supernatural truths of Christianity. 
Against the Professor, the drama, again and again, empha- 
sizes in express terms Hamlet's belief in Christianity, in 
the supernatural, in the existence of God, in His moral law, 
and in His all ruling Providence ; his belief in the spirituality 
and immortality of the soul, and in a life beyond the grave ; 
his belief in purgatory, in preternatural agencies, as angels 
and demons; his belief in grace, and in the efficacy of prayer 
and the sacraments. All this the drama luminously reveals 
to every reader whose mental vision is not jaundiced by pre- 
judice, nor obscured by some color of error against the white 
light of truth. Gratuitous, therefore, and uncalled for, must 
seem the Professor's words : "Let them (the priests) resolve 
his doubts about the soul, about immortality, about God 
first." 

5 Aristotle's philosophy was translated into Latin by Boethius in the sixth 
century. It was adopted by Christian philosophers in the schools of west- 
ern Europe from the beginning of the ninth century. Later it was made 
the basis of a rational exposition of Christian dogma. 

[262] 



scene i. A WANDERER AFTER TRUTH 

AN AIMLESS WANDERER AFTER TRUTH 

But, again, the Professor remarks: 

"But Shakespeare has taken care to show us in the 
effete society of Denmark, where everything needs renewal, 
what religion is, a religion which makes Hamlet an aimless 
wanderer after truth." 

If Shakespeare clearly reveals the effete social life of 
Denmark, it is no less clear that, contrary to the Professor, 
he carefully refrains from attributing this effete condition to 
the Christian religion, and from making it the cause of Ham- 
let's so called aimless wandering after truth. The Professor's 
assumption might bear some semblance to truth, if we ignore 
altogether the civil and religious conditions actually prevail- 
ing in Denmark at the time of Shakespeare 's Hamlet. As noted 
previously, the sun of Christian civilization, which had long 
illumined the nations of the South, shone with less vigor upon 
the remote regions of the North, where Norsemen with minds 
still involved in pagan myths, continued within their wilds 
the worship of Odin. If upon their hostile shores, successive 
missionaries had at intervals during three centuries, planted 
the cross under one monarch, it was overthrown by the next. 
Even in Hamlet's day, Christianity, known mainly in the 
maritime towns, was still struggling for free existence, and, 
without permanent organizations and schools, relied solely 
upon the zealous efforts of volunteer missionaries; hence in 
her first notable success under royal patronage, conversions 
among the upper classes and in the centres of population, 
were often lacking in thoroughness for want of training and 
instruction. 

Paganism could not be erased at a stroke from the mind 
of the nation. It thrived side by side with the Christian reli- 
gion, and long overshadowing it, maintained with stubborn 
hold its infectious influence upon the thoughts, and manners, 

[263] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act in. 

and customs of the people. This we see in Polonius, and in 
the libertine Laertes, whose character the Poet sketches in 
shadows scarcely illumined by a nickering ray of Christian 
light. Again we see it in Claudius and in Gertrude, whose 
composite characters, like a mixture of oil and water, portray 
a medley of the repelling elements of the pagan and the 
Christian religions. 

In these portrayals are clearly exposed the cause of the 
depravity of social life in Denmark, where paganism yet 
ruled the masses; where in high places, servile courtiers, in 
mimicry of royalty, attempted to put on the new Christian 
man, without putting off the old pagan, and, while openly 
professing Christianity, nevertheless, inwardly adhered to ah 
that nattered fallen nature, to all that was dear in the cus- 
toms and laws of their native paganism. Hence to ascribe 
the evils of the social life, which a corrupt paganism had 
originated, and supported, and familiarized the masses with 
for centuries, to the Christian religion, which was yet strug- 
gling in many parts for existence, and in others for free 
development, is beyond doubt a glaring injustice. There 
was, therefore, no need of a " renewal' ' of the Christian life 
of the people, which, as the Professor supposes, was then in 
decline, but there was a pressing need of the destruction of 
the religion of Odin with all its evils, and the conversion 
of the masses to the Christian religion, which was to bring 
them the manifold blessings of a new, and higher civilization. 

To demand an impossibility of the Christian religion, and 
then to blame it for not doing the impossible, is assuredly a 
great injustice. It is impossible for the Church to influence 
the lives of men who will not hear her. If we would know 
her salutary influence, we must logically look to her true 
children, who accept her doctrines, and practice her moral 
precepts, and not to renegades who reject them. She has 

[264] 



scene i. A WANDERER AFTER TRUTH 

made many and many a saint, whilst every criminal, nomi- 
nally within her fold, is a criminal in spite of her, and solely 
because he will not follow her spiritual guidance, and sub- 
mit to her moral influence. In exemplification, the Poet 
exhibits on the one hand, a noble-minded Hamlet in his Chris- 
tian character, and on the other, human nature unregener- 
ated in a wicked Claudius. 

Surprising, moreover, is the Professor's notion that the 
Catholic religion makes Hamlet "an aimless wanderer after 
truth," surprising, because Catholics adhering to an infalli- 
bly teaching Church, are commonly supposed to be freed 
from the necessity of groping after religious truth. The dual 
charge of the Professor seems, however, not only without 
support, but even in contradiction to the drama itself. 
Shakespeare clearly makes Hamlet a wanderer after truth, 
not indeed religious truth, but truth concerning the crime 
revealed by the ghost. Nowhere does he portray him as "an 
aimless wanderer," but always as a man who, with a fixed 
aim to the exclusion of all else, seeks to satisfy his con- 
science. Hence his aim is single and unswerving. It is to 
attain, notwithstanding remarkable difficulties, positive 
proofs of his uncle 's guilt. Until he has this proof his Chris- 
tian moral feelings struggle against the natural promptings of 
"revenge," and in consequence there ensues a repeated con- 
flict between the pagan and the Christian elements of his 
nature. 

In the attainment of these proofs, the Prince, far from 
being "an aimless wanderer after truth," reveals himself, 
with an unfaltering aim in persistent search, from the mo- 
ment that he hears the dread secret, until before the whole 
court, he unmasks the royal hypocrite, and, in the consum- 
mation of his sworn "revenge," strikes the blow which, to 
the eyes of all, is a merited retribution. No man ever faced a 

[265] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

task so seemingly impossible, and only his persistent aim, 
despite ever recurring obstacles, won for him a victory, 
which at once saved his own honor, and avenged the foul 
murder of his father. 

Like the two foregoing commentators, there are others, 
who fail to grasp fully the real character of Hamlet; be- 
cause, ignoring his Christian Faith, they insist on seeing 
him from their own subjective view. It seems surely rational 
that if we would know the real or objective Hamlet, we must 
cast aside all preconceived personal views, prejudices, and 
most of all religious bias. It is only by turning back to the 
long ago, and seeing him in strange circumstances, actuated 
by thoughts, impulses, and emotions, which in the main are 
dominated by the religious beliefs and moral tenets of the 
Church, that we may come to know him, to understand the 
composite elements of his nature, and truly see and appre- 
ciate the worth of the man, who among all the creations of 
the Poet's genius, is universally acknowledged to be unique 
and unapproachable. 

LAWFUL ESPIALS 

In the meanwhile the King and Polonius, concealed be- 
hind the arras in the throne-room, were impatiently awaiting 
Hamlet's awakening to the presence of Ophelia. Posed by 
her father, with her eyes intently fixed in pious gaze upon 
the open pages of her prayer book, she demurely sat, seem- 
ingly oblivious of her surroundings. The Prince having 
finished his soliloquy of troubled and perplexing thoughts, 
turns from the ideal to the real world of action. Pursuing 
his course in quest of the King, he stays his steps when the 
presence of Ophelia beams upon him in surprise like a sudden 
flash of light. For the moment his gloomy thoughts are ban- 
ished. Her presence awakens the slumbering sentiments of 

[266] 



scene i. LAWFUL ESPIALS 

former affection, and, forgetful of his assumed role of lunacy, 
he addresses her in gentle terms of tenderness. 

Here, as usual, when taken by surprise, Hamlet gives 
sudden utterance to the thoughts habitually current in his 
mind. When surprised by his father's ghost, he appealed 
for aid to heaven in the words, "angels and ministers of 
grace defend us," and now, when suddenly stumbling upon 
the unexpected presence of Ophelia, his exclamation again 
indicates his Christian faith in the remission of sins by the 
power of prayer: "Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins 
remembered." 

The position of Ophelia in the present scene, if anoma- 
lous, is, nevertheless, a luminous index to her character. It 
reveals the lack of large mental powers and of the usual 
sagacity of the feminine mind, quick to perceive the chang- 
ing moods of her lover, to sympathize with him, and, if need 
be, to support him in his overmastering grief. The Poet 
leaves to our fancy her relations to Hamlet in the earlier days 
of courtship, when they pledged mutual love, and exchanged 
tokens of affection; but these tokens were inconsiderate 
trifles to a man like Hamlet, with whom a larger exchange of 
the nobler qualities of mind and heart was impossible with a 
character so negative, unenergetic of will, and passionless. 
When Ophelia, therefore, speaks of returning his gifts, the 
offended Hamlet could truly say "I never gave you aught!" 
Unwise, at least, was her untimely purpose of forcing back 
his gifts upon him in his present melancholic and distracted 
mood. Action so inopportune, and which he knew was dic- 
tated by her father, could only further irritate his sensitive 
soul, and let loose his long pent-up feelings. 

Ophelia did not fathom the depth of Hamlet 's character. 
After being untrue to her lover, not only by failing to make 
a serious defence of his honor, but also by accepting the 

[267] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act in. 

evil insinuations made by her father and Laertes; after 
having rejected his letters, and closed her doors upon him 
without any provocation, and without assigning any cause 
for her strange conduct, she, nevertheless, with true womanly 
instinct, assumes the role of injured innocence, and even 
worse, without demur pliantly lends herself, a decoy, to lure 
into the snare of his enemies her most sensitive lover — a man 
whose lofty mind and refined moral sense abhor — as the 
foulness of Erebus every form of falsehood and hypocrisy. 
No characteristic of Hamlet is more vividly portrayed than 
his love for moral worth, his longing for sincerity and truth, 
and his actual revulsion of feeling against every individual 
in whose words and actions he detects affectation, or dupli- 
city, or falsehood under its varied forms. 

ARE YOU FAIR, ARE YOU HONEST 

After his surprise and first affectionate greetings to the 
lone Ophelia, his penetrating mind could not long fail to 
grasp the situation ; and in consequence of dark suspicions of 
foul play, which suddenly flashed before him, he was at once 
upon his guard against any intended treachery. The unusual 
position of Ophelia, sitting alone in the throne-room, engaged 
in devotions; the sight of his many tokens of love accumu- 
lated beside her, with the evident intention of returning them 
on meeting him : her strange look and unnatural manner, her 
formal words and studied phrases : as — 

" Their perfume lost, 
Take these again; for to the noble mind 
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind," 

forced on him the belief that she was acting a role assigned 
her. Her words disclose the nature of her thoughts. The 
burden of her father's reproof had been Hamlet's dishonor- 

[268] 



scene i. ARE YOU FAIR 

able love and the danger to her virtue. As long as his affec- 
tion seemed honest, she had treasured his "sweet remem- 
brances"; but now, that his love is reputed ignoble, his "rich 
gifts have lost their perfume," and she, a virtuous maid of 
"noble mind" feels constrained to "re-deliver" them. Is it 
surprising that such words were supremely irritating to a man 
whose conduct towards his mother shows him most severe 
in regard to sexual relations? Ophelia, but not her lover, 
had been unkind. She had indeed been far from "noble 
minded" when without resentment she listened to the defa- 
mation and vilification of his character, and without proof 
believed ignoble charges against him. His known honor and 
her intimate relations with him should have armed her 
against the two slanderous wiseacres. 

Her words begot an intense resentment, which was 
heightened by her exhibition of duplicity and unfaithfulness. 
It roused his truthful, loving soul to abhorrence ; and this 
abhorrence grew stronger when, in forcing back his gifts 
upon him, she sought to cloak her conduct under the pretense 
of suspecting his motives to be dishonorable. She seems to 
have deserted to the camp of the hated usurper, and, like 
his mother, to be dead to the virtue of honesty and the senti- 
ments of honor. This thought fills his soul with affliction; 
and beneath the extravagant outburst, which the situation 
has forced upon him, he labors to veil his genuine grief. He 
is in the home of his cunning enemy, who suspecting his 
knowledge of the murder, and doubting the reality of his 
mental malady, had set upon him spies who were dogging 
his every footstep, and of these the worst was Ophelia's 
own father. 

Suspicions flit through his mind from the strangeness of 
his position. He sees himself surrounded by eavesdroppers 
with the lone maiden placed in his path, as a puppet, to 

[269] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act in. 

enmesh, him in their well-laid snare. If they will test his 
sanity ; if they will have visible proofs of his love for Ophelia, 
he will accommodate them with full vengeance. Hence, the 
voice which at first had naught but tender words for Ophe- 
lia, now suddenly assumes a harshness, under which conceal- 
ing the bitterness of his wounded love, he breaks forth in 
wild bewildering, ironical laughter. The charge that he has 
badly treated a virtuous maiden, prompts questioning words 
of mockery: "Ha, ha! Are you honest? Are you fair?" 
How startling to the eavesdroppers, and how disturbing to 
the serene composure of Ophelia, must have been the pierc- 
ing force of these sarcastic questions so suddenly shot forth 
in exposure of her duplicity? "Are you honest," or sincere? 
"Are you fair," or just? Ophelia seems not to understand 
the meaning of his words, and Hamlet, not wishing to betray 
himself, now repeats the terms in a new sense, which bears 
an ironical allusion to her father's injunction against associa- 
tion and converse with him. If she be "honest and fair," if 
she be virtuous and beautiful, she should not discourse with 
him, nor walk in the sun, but remain at home in seclusion, to 
guard her virtue jealously against the shafts of flattery, 
which her beauty might occasion in consorting with men. In 
proof, he appeals to the force of a paradox, that no honesty 
of woman can withstand temptation, and ironically applies 
it to herself ; since she ' ' gives it proof ' ' in her duplicity, and 
then he exclaims in tones of sad regret, "I did love you 
once!" 

The word "once" must have been a shock to Ophelia's 
young heart ; it revealed that his love was dead. The shock 
was not lessened by his further ironical reply, that she 
should not have believed his protestations of love. The irony 
of his words lay in her supposed acceptance of her father's 
low estimate of his character, in accordance with which he 

[270] 



scene i. ARE YOU FAIR 

was a dishonorable man unworthy of trust, and, therefore, 
she should not have believed his words of love. 

At this point, resulting, perhaps, from the sudden recol- 
lection of his actual position, Hamlet's thoughts turn in a 
new direction. Unable to reveal to Ophelia the ghostly se- 
cret and the real cause of his seeming madness; unable to 
inform her that having sworn to sacrifice his life with all its 
endearing interests to the one set purpose of " revenge," he 
could no longer dream of marrying her; nevertheless, with 
love still lingering in his heart, he felt the necessity of seek- 
ing a release from her forever in this his last farewell. If 
cruelty there be, it is beyond his remedy. He hopes, however, 
that his mental aberration, which she supposes real, may 
soften the blow ; and to aid therein, he enters upon a self-de- 
preciation which recalls the scene in Macbeth, where Mal- 
colm, to test the fidelity of Macduff, accuses himself of mani- 
fold misdeeds which should debar him from the throne : 

"Justice, verity, temperance, stableness, 
Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness, 
Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude, 
I have no relish of them, but abound 
In the division of each several crime, 
Acting in many ways.' 7 

In a similar strain, Hamlet, in the hope of showing his un- 
worthiness of her, and that in losing him she has lost a thing 
of little worth, proceeds to defame himself by professing to 
be indifferently honest, proud, revengeful, ambitious, with 
more offences at his back than he has thoughts to put them in, 
or imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. 
In all this there is, moreover, an ironical allusion to the slan- 
derous charges uttered against him by her father and Laer- 
tes. If he cannot trust himself; if she cannot believe his 
vows; if virtue cannot so perfect our fallen nature as to 

[271] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act in. 

extinguish its relish for evil, how can she have faith in him, 
the son of his mother? We are all arrant knaves, believe 
none of us. Get thee gone ! Seek a safe refuge from a wicked 
world. Get thee to a nunnery. 

A LITTLE LIE 

After these words, he hastens away, but, turning sud- 
denly and glancing back, he catches a glimpse of the peeping 
Polonius. Though strong suspicions, which had hitherto 
ruled his mind, now give way to absolute certainty, still un- 
certainty remains concerning Ophelia 's complicity in the con- 
temptible plot. Before condemning her as an accomplice, he 
will put her to the plain proof; accordingly, he rushes back 
in wild excitement, and standing before her, glares search- 
ingly into her eyes, demanding in harsh angry tones, 
* ' where 's your father ? ' ' Ophelia, no doubt, taken completely 
by surprise, betrays herself by a quick and unconscious 
glance towards the concealed spies, and then with troubled 
looks stammers forth the words ' ' at home my lord. ' ' 

When Ophelia uttered what Professor Dowden calls a 
little lie, she was, perhaps, unaware that her lover was 
smarting under a keen sense of wrong, by reason of her pres- 
ent and her former conduct. A little lie may often do much 
unconscious harm, even as a tiny spark ignites a great confla- 
gration. Her lie is defended by Professor Bradley 6 who even 
deems it heroic under the circumstances. In approval, he 
affirms that if ever an angry lunatic should ask him a ques- 
tion which he could not answer truly without great danger 
to him and to one of his relations, he hopes that grace would 
be given him to imitate Ophelia. But the Professor seems to 
forget that heaven never grants grace in aid of an evil deed. 
In the given case he could easily avoid a lie by an evasive 

6 "The Tragedies of Shakespeare", p. 163. 

[272] 






scene i. A LITTLE LIE 

answer. That he approves Ophelia's lie does not justify it. 
That the end does not justify the means is a moral axiom. 
Man's actions should conform to the natural law, which is not 
man-made nor changeable at will. The Professor's approval 
only shows that his notions are lax where Hamlet's 
were orthodox. The latter, as a philosopher, knew that the 
morality of an act depends upon its object, purpose, and cir- 
cumstances; that if the act be in itself evil, no circumstance 
nor intention can ever make it good. 

Ophelia 's falsehood, however, allows of extenuation, and 
in fact an exception may be taken to the opinion of Profes- 
sors Dowden and Bradley, because her words were uttered 
hurriedly and without reflection when, under mental disturb- 
ance, she was taken by surprise. Hence, her "little lie" 
being neither deliberate nor willful was in consequence only 
apparent or material rather than a formal falsehood; and 
such an act is not morally imputable. Ophelia, moreover, 
may be exculpated on the plea of a mental reservation ; for 
to her Polonius seemed as much "at home" in the royal 
palace as in his own domicile. Nevertheless, her reply was 
hateful and supremely irritating to Hamlet, not because it 
implied a falsehood, not because she tried to deceive him, 
but because it unmasked her false position in which by a 
pious imposture with prayer book in hand, she conspired to 
betray him to his enemy ; such treachery seemed to disclose a 
lack of truth, love, and honor. 

Ophelia's evident treachery rouses by its painful truth 
her lover 's anger. He has detected her in traitorous alliance 
with his enemies, who even now are watching for an outbreak 
of his madness. Her assured duplicity extinguishes for the 
moment every emotion of affection, opens up the flood-gates 
of his indignation; and his madness, till now only feigned, 
presently assumes the proportions of reality. Glancing with 

[273] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

threatening fierceness towards Polonius, he commands in thun- 
dering tones of irritation : "Let the doors be shut upon him." 
His eyes aflame with raging anger at the plot of the criminal, 
he casts one hurried look upon Ophelia, and departing waves 
his farewell in a frantic utterance of overpowering pain. 
Ophelia in affright can only pray : 

"0, help him, you sweet heavens l" 

His towering passion, however, goads him on to manifest 
his madness further in the presence of the conspirators, and 
hastening back, he blazes forth his sense of wrong by in- 
vectives which in their vehemence are uttered more for the 
benefit of his enemies than against the fair but false 
Ophelia. Once he had prized womanhood in his mother 
and Ophelia, the two whom alone of women he had ever 
loved. Both in turn had killed that love ; the one by infidelity 
to his father and by her present shameful life ; and the other, 
by her insincerity and falsehood. Truly, he felt * ' frailty, thy 
name is woman." In bitter raillery, he assures her that as 
his honor has not escaped reproach, so too if she marry, her 
virtue shall not escape the poisoned shafts of calumny in this 
contaminated world; and, therefore, again he urges, "get 
thee to a nunnery." The first utterance of these words was 
prompted by his own sense of men's wickedness, but now 
they are spoken from his consciousness of woman's falseness. 
■ ' If thou wilt marry, marry a fool. ' ' You have been conspir- 
ing to make me one; but "wise men know what monsters 
you make of them." "Get thee to a nunnery!" Again he 
rushes forth in anger, hurling back his "farewell." 

Returning for the last time in growing rage, he shoots 
new darts of irony. The fact that she had deceitfully gone 
over to the enemy, engenders the fear that he has been deceiv- 
ed in her as in his mother; that her love, which he deemed 

[274] 



scene i A LITTLE LIE 

simple and sincere, was artful and superficial, and the 
thought impels him to make scornful reference to the many 
artifices she employs to render herself more attractive. From 
these heated satirical invectives which were uttered to convince 
the eavesdroppers in their notion of his dementia, he now turns 
his batteries upon them. The secret presence of the hated 
conspirators lashes him to fury ; his words roll out faster and 
faster, and looking wildly towards the spies, he affirms, 
there shall be no more marriages at court, neither of himself 
nor of Ophelia. His eyes now flashing with sinister purpose, 
he points a threatening finger towards Claudius, and, in refer- 
ence to his incestuous marriage, exclaims in boisterous force, 
" those that are married already, all but one shall live." At 
this, the fierce thought of his bloody "revenge" seizes his 
mind. In fancy he strikes down the monstrous fratricide, 
and though he sees himself engulfed in the general ruin, 
which shall accompany the wreckage of the throne, he would 
have Ophelia safe in refuge from the impending doom; and, 
therefore, while finally hurrying away from the painful scene, 
he again utters the mandate, ' ' get thee to a nunnery ! ' ' 

It was, under the circumstances, the best and only advice 
he could give her. A nunnery was her best and only refuge 
from the impending storm. Destruction for himself and all 
else around him; but for her the cloister's timely shelter. 
"There is no telling when the fierce wrath may seize him; 
when he may shake down the pillars of that guilty palace. 
But not on her fair head, if he can help it, shall the ruin fall ! 
Since the grave is opening for him, let the convent open for 
her. Not his, but never another's. Could she not guess? 
Had she not some shadowy perception of the jealous masculine 
love, which despite their fell divorce, would wall her from the 
world, and mark her with the seal of God?" 7 

7 George Miles, "Essay on Hamlet". 

[275] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

THE TREATMENT OF OPHELIA 

Hamlet leaves the field in triumph, conscious of having 
outwitted the secret stratagem of the King and his foolish old 
minister. His extravagant manifestation of anger, which is 
partly real and partly fictitious, forms the principal argu- 
ment of those who maintain the theory of real insanity ; while 
others hold it wholly inexcusable and uncalled for. Their 
assertion might assume the force of an argument, if no exig- 
ency were found in the plot to require a violent outburst ; but 
with such an emergency actually arising in the very scene it- 
self, the argument loses its genuine force. This necessity 
flows from a twofold source ; the one, the real offence offered 
him by Ophelia and her father, and the other, the treachery 
by which they hoped to entrap him. If then we consider, 
not only the intent and purpose of his outbreak, which was 
partly feigned and partly real, but also the strong provoca- 
tion, his alleged cruelty seems rather apparent than real. All 
doubt, says Bradley, would probably disappear in a contemp- 
orary representation of Hamlet ; the actor, instructed by the 
author, would make it clear to us by looks, tones, gestures, 
and by-play how far Hamlet 's feigned harshness was mingled 
with real bitterness, and how far it was intended for the 
eavesdroppers rather than for Ophelia. 

The Poet leaves no doubt concerning the reality of the 
provocation. Hamlet's love for Ophelia was genuine. After 
the dread revelation of the ghost, he had, however, pledged 
to erase all memories of the past, "all fond records, " even 
Ophelia's love ; because, his life now blasted, and all his hopes 
and aspirations blighted by the one purpose of his sworn 
"revenge," he felt that he could no longer dream of linking 
her fortunes to his own doomed existence. Yet in subsequent 
reflections on the hopeless shipwreck of his life, the gloomy 

[276] 



scene i. TREATMENT OF OPHELIA 

clouds which enveloped him were rifted at times, and with a 
flashing thought came a fond hope that, perhaps from out the 
floating wreck, he might save one beloved form. 

In his changed life with its sole dark purpose, it was 
clear, he could no longer pursue his courtship of Ophelia ; for 
after weighing and finding her wanting in strength of mind 
and courage of heart, he dared not even whisper to her his 
awful secret, nor reveal the cause of his assumed madness. 
But he had confidently hoped that she would remain true to 
his love and to her own pledged fidelity. How mortally, 
therefore, must she have wounded his soul and crushed the 
fond hope of his heart? In consequence, his love, already 
weakened by melancholy, was now tinctured with bitterness. 
Moreover, his violent outbreak was sanctioned by treacherous 
and involuntary circumstances. The spies had skillfully plot- 
ted to catch him in ambush and snatch a secret which he 
must guard at all hazards, since on its safety depended the 
success of his sworn "revenge." Hence to block their perfi- 
dious design, he must by a manifestation of violent madness 
confirm their belief in his real dementia. Ophelia, however, 
does not consider herself cruelly treated. Having accepted 
her father's opinion, she imagines Hamlet's madness to be 
real, and to be due to her neglected love. If her lover's words 
are harsh and wild, she, nevertheless, deems them the utter- 
ances of an irresponsible madman ; and his love and concern 
for her, which she sees shining through all his invectives, robs 
them of seeming and intentional harshness. Throughout the 
scene she says but little, and that little reveals no sense of 
hurt or injured feelings. Her words so few, yet expressive 
of her sympathetic heart, are only piteous prayers to heaven 
in behalf of her mad noble lover, whom by her docile conduct, 
she thinks, she has driven to lamentable insanity. 

[277] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act hi. 



O, WOE IS ME! 



Most painful to Ophelia must have been her part in the 
plot, when she realized its unforeseen fatal issue. To know 
that in this lone interview with her lover, her father and the 
King had heard all the dreadful words of Hamlet ; to know 
that she is never to meet him more in private, when she had 
so much to say in extenuation of her past enforced conduct; 
to know that she was compelled to meet him in this false and 
unnatural attitude, to bear all his reproaches and his bitter- 
ness at her supposed treachery, without daring to breathe a 
word in vindication of herself in the hearing of her father and 
the King : these were oppressive thoughts, which impelled her, 
when free from observation to give expression to her wretch- 
edness : 

' ' Oph. 0, what a noble mind is here o 'erthrown ! 

The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword; 

The expectancy and rose of the fair State, 

The glass of fashion and the mould of form, 

The observed of all observers, quite, quite down! 

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, 

That sucked the honey and his music vows, 

Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, 

Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh; 

That unmatched form and feature of blown youth 

Blasted with ecstasy: 0, woe is me, 

To have seen what I have seen, see what I see! ,, 

Unlike all other lovers of the Poet's portrayal, Ophelia 
appears unique, when studied from the text, and not from 
interpolations on the modern stage. Hers is not the ardent 
nature of an Imogen or a Juliet. Their passion of love is 
scarcely known to her unemotional and still undeveloped 
nature ; and not till later does she seem to know how much 
she loved the lord Hamlet. Unmindful of self, her thoughts 
and prayers are all bent on him. So unlike others 

[278] 



scene i. A NEW STRATAGEM 

in a similar bereavement, she appears unconscious 
of any pangs of love. No aching throb seems to pain 
her bosom ; no emotional suffering is revealed at the loss of a 
lover whose intrinsic worth she knew was great, and whose 
affection for her was strong and ardent. Hence, afflicted 
more in mind than in heart, her grief is prompted, not so 
much by the loss of her lover, as from the pity, and sorrow, 
and sympathy of a dear friend, who mourns the mental ruin 
of some loved one. Accordingly, her thoughts, far from re- 
flexive, are totally engaged on Hamlet, upon his ex- 
ternal qualities, and his present sad condition; and, in 
consequence, she dilates in mourning upon the loss of the 
courtier, the soldier, the scholar, the mirror of fashion all 
these he was, as seen through love's eyes. Though she, who 
had sucked the honey of his music vows, feels " deject and 
wretched, " it is mainly because she sees the hope and pride of 
the state, "like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh, 
blasted with ecstasy" or madness. Her grief seems inspired 
more by Hamlet's sad affliction of insanity, than by her own 
loss of her lover. 

A NEW STRATAGEM 

The unexpected failure of the stratagem was a sore dis- 
appointment to the King and his minister. Its effect upon 
the former was negative, and wholly contrary to what Polon- 
ius had desired. If it strengthened the pet theory of the 
minister, it positively confirmed Claudius in his preexisting 
suspicion of Hamlet's feigned madness. Hence, on coming 
forth from the hiding after Hamlet's departure, he exclaims 
with forceful emphasis, as noted in the original text: 8 

"Love, no, no, that's not the cause, 
Some deeper thing, it is that troubles him." 

8 First Quarto 1603. 

[ 279 ] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

This difference of effect was owing to the advantage 
which the King possessed over his minister. An astute and 
close observer, Claudius had from the very start suspected 
that Hamlet was only feigning madness, and feared lest he 
possessed a knowledge of the secret crime. Hence, with his 
wits sharpened by anxiety, he was quick to notice that his 
nephew's words and actions, though lacking a little in coher- 
ence, as was natural to a man who was playing madness, were 
nevertheless, both in form and matter, far from those of a 
real madman. He considered the question from the side or 
its practical bearings on his own interests, and concluded 
that, as far as these are concerned, Hamlet is not mad, but 
most dangerously sane. His conclusion now assumes almost 
certainty, in face of the Prince's declaration, "all but one 
shall live." These words were without meaning for Polon- 
ius ; but, shot forth in the violence of a maddening triumph, 
they startled Claudius, because he recognized in them a part- 
ing threat, full of significance and of menace to his safety. 
Hence his guilty soul, at once, overawed by Hamlet 's mad 
violence and open threat, was filled with fear and apprehen- 
sion. There is, he affirms, in his nephew's melancholy soul 
some hidden thing on which he broods, and "the hatch no 
doubt will be some danger." His secret knowledge enables 
him to suspect the true nature of the danger, and this sus- 
picion prompts him to immediate action. 

A man like Claudius, rich in experience and quick in 
resolve, determined without delay upon a plan that would rid 
himself and Denmark of the Prince's presence. It was a 
specious plan. The Danes, the masters of the sea, were at 
that period accustomed to invade England at intervals unto 
great destruction, until its people in their helplessness, had in 
fine decided to stay these hostile incursions by a voluntary 
payment of an annual tribute. This tax, which of late years 

[ 280 ] 



scene i. A NEW STRATAGEM 

remained unpaid, afforded the King a ready pretext to send 
Hamlet on an embassy for its collection. There is nothing at 
this point, to justify the idea that Claudius had already 
hatched the plot to murder the Prince by royal proxy In 
England. His sole thought, for the present, is centered in 
the hope that foreign travel with its varied scenes and clim- 
ate, may rift he clouds of melancholy that darken the 
Prince 's moody brain. If this prove fruitless, he sees in the 
absence of his nephew a riddance of present danger and a 
gaining of time to think of other safeguards against his dan- 
gerous lunacy. At this juncture, Ophelia approaches and 
Polonius in surprise at her sad plight exclaims, "How now, 
Ophelia ! ' ' She had come forth from the ordeal with evident 
signs of distress : her flushed face, troubled mien, and utter 
dejection of spirits, plainly told her sufferings of mind and 
heart. 

If Polonius was puzzled, he was still more chagrined at 
the collapse of his vaunted plan. Having confidently assur- 
ed the King that the "espials" would prove the correctness 
of his theory concerning Hamlet's madness, and having 
boastfully staked his reputation upon its success, he naturally 
felt a keen disappointment. If the failure seemed to Claud- 
ius, to prove beyond doubt the hollowness of the old man's 
theory, Polonius, under the influence of his imaginary infal- 
libility of judgment, still tenaciously adhered to his discredit- 
ed opinions. Hence while diplomatically approving the 
King's new project, he is unwilling to admit his error, and 
in unshaken assurance proposes a new scheme to attest the 
soundness of his judgment. 

His new design, as shady as the former, is but another 
sample of his boasted diplomacy, "by indirection to find dir- 
ection out. ' ' The senile intriguer, who gloried in a statecraft 
founded in the main on a system of espionage and eavesdrop- 

[281] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

ping, was so long addicted to cunning ways and devious paths 
that he became a victim of suspicion; and this mental trait 
destroyed his confidence in human nature, even in his own 
children. His son, he discredited by spying on his life in 
Paris ; Ophelia, he scarcely trusted beyond his presence ; and 
in his new plot, he cannot rely upon the fidelity of the Queen. 
Hence he urges the King to insist that she exercise her just 
parental authority in the interview to be prearranged be- 
tween herself and Hamlet. He was wont to do the same, as 
we have seen, when he browbeat Ophelia into a confession of 
her love affair. In like manner the Queen-mother must be 
urged to use her full authority in all severity. If she be out- 
spoken with her son ; if she be severe, peremptory, and bold, 
and speak in plain, unmincing words, she may root from his 
heart the secret of his melancholy malady. Furthermore, in 
mistrust of the mother, lest, under the influence of maternal 
affection, she may fail to report the interview aright, he as- 
sures the King that he himself, unknown to them, will, from 
his concealment in the Queen's boudoir, overhear all that 
passes, and report in full and correctly to his royal highness. 
Claudius agrees to the project, and, while postponing for a 
time his design of Hamlet's embassy to England, decides to 
redouble his vigilance : 

"Madness in great ones must not un watched go," 



[282] 



scene ii. IDENTIFIED WITH HAMLET 



SCENE SECOND 

The transition from the last scene of tumultuous raging 
passion to the present, in which the Prince appears a judi- 
cious critic, self-possessed, and in perfect equanimity of mind, 
reveals a new and surprising trait of his character. If he is 
pictured as suddenly passing from the whirlwind of passion 
to a perfect calm, in which his instruction to the Players, 
discloses him keen of judgment and an admirable critic of 
the dramatic art ; if at this trying moment, when the assured 
triumph of his plot arouses him to the highest nervous and 
mental strain, he is, nevertheless, pictured in perfect repres- 
sion of feelings, as interesting himself in the minutiae of the 
player's art, and in manifesting by private conversation his 
strong affection for Horatio; if while awaiting the opening 
of the Play, he is seen, in presence of the assembled court, to 
adapt himself readily to every character, whether friend or 
foe, revealing to the former his sanity and to the latter his 
feigned madness, now irritating the King by his ironical shafts, 
now exposing Polonius to ridicule, now tantalizing Ophelia, 
and now turning aside to discourse sanely with Horatio ; all 
seems done for the express purpose of affording by this lum- 
inous contrast to his former violent outburst, sufficient evi- 
dence to guard us against the mistaken notion that he is in 
reality dethroned in reason. 

IDENTIFIED WITH HAMLET 

Shakespeare's natural pride in the dramatic art, leads 
him to identify himself with Hamlet at the opening of the 
present scene. He portrays the Prince as a man of rare men- 
tal attainments, cultivated tastes, and a lover and patron of 

[283] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act hi. 

the drama. By sketching in his intruction to the Players, 
the essential laws which should govern every impersonation, 
and by decrying the manifold evils which infested the stage 
of his day, he discloses his own high ideals of the histrionic 
art. He insists upon distinctness of utterance and a natural- 
ness of action in harmony with the thought expressed. He 
demands a spirit of truthfulness and simplicity which, safe- 
guarding the actor against overstepping "the modesty of 
nature, ' ' will save him from arrogance in overdoing his char- 
acter, and from diffidence in reaching the required elevation. 
His supreme norm is simplicity and fidelity to truth. The 
purpose of his art is "to show virtue her own features, and 
scorn, her own image. " 

By these words, Shakespeare, who speaks in the person 
of Hamlet, is far from advocating the realism, which, without 
the idealization of art, reproduces with exactness upon our 
modern stage human life in all its vulgarities. Such license 
is an abuse of the histrionic art, and necessarily leads to 
evil in the deterioration of morals. True to the real, to the 
ideal art, he himself "holds the mirror up to nature." He 
reflects to our mental vision, by means of vivid representa- 
tion, human life and action in its varied purposes and motive 
powers, its virtues and opposing vices, their origin and nat- 
ure, their growth and fruit, with the view of revealing the 
important truth that man is not a slave of circumstances, 
nor of chance, nor of inexorable fate; but a free agent, the 
creator of his own character, and the arbiter of his own des- 
tiny. If he rationally conform his life to the natural and 
moral law, it will lead him to virtue and to unfailing reward ; 
but if, ignoring or defying the same law, he pursue evil, he 
shall inevitably find an avenging Nemesis following on his 
trail. This, in the mind of the Poet, is the noble purpose of 
the dramatic art, a purpose which endows it with a lasting 

[284] 



scene ii. IDENTIFIED WITH HAMLET 

interest and a power incalculable for good ; and to this noble 
purpose, Shakespeare has unfailingly adhered beyond all 
dramatists of his own and of later times. 

From his instruction to the Players we may safely con- 
clude what sort of an actor was Shakespeare himself. Though 
tradition says that he played but secondary parts, such as the 
King, and the Ghost in Hamlet, and old Adam in As You 
Like It, it was, we may suppose, not only from pure good 
nature, but also because of other important labors which 
taxed his time in the composition and rehearsal of his dramas. 
There is no reason to doubt that he was an excellent actor, 
but too quick, simple, and natural to please a vitiated popular 
taste which demanded loudness, bombastic action, declama- 
tion, and exaggeration, all characteristics still too common on 
the public stage. 

Garrick more than any other man was an actor accord- 
ing to Shakespeare's own heart; but Partridge who was a 
fair representative of the popular feeling of his day, says he 
was "too simple, natural, and affecting." Anybody might 
act Hamlet like him. In the Poet's time no less than in our 
own, the popular taste hungered after what it did not see in 
life, — "just as the chambermaids and middle classes of to- 
day," says Story, "like novels of high life, and ghostly ad- 
ventures, and sensational incidents." Comedy is too often 
turned into farce, and tragedy into rant, and what is called 
elocution or an artificial intonation and pronunciation such 
as no human being in his senses would use in daily life. 

With reason, therefore, Shakespeare lays down certain 
negative laws on which he dwells even more than on those of 
the positive order; and launches stinging invectives against 
abuses which tend to degrade the drama and to depreciate it 
in the eyes of the judicious. The "robustious periwig-pated 
fellows" were the "termagants" and "Herods," who tore a 

[285] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

passion to tatters, and who in accents neither Christian nor 
pagan strutted and bellowed in their abominable imitations 
of "humanity." ' ' Termagant, ' ' a god of the Saracens, was 
a character common to the romances and plays of the middle 
ages. He was a familiar stock personage, unvaryingly bloody 
and riotous of nature, and an implacable demon of fire and 
sword. Similarly, Herod was an unfailing favorite of the 
same dramas. In The Murder of the Innocents, the most 
popular of the Mystery Plays, he was regularly characterized 
as a bloody tyrant, monstrous in pride, and a blustering 
braggart raving in furious bombast. 

Though the Mysteries were distinct from the Miracle 
dramas, they were at times interwoven one with the other. 
The Mysteries were founded on the historical parts of the 
Old and New Testament, while the Miracle Plays were based 
either on legendary subjects, or on the lives of the saints. 
Originating in the Church, they were designed as an effica- 
cious means of instructing the masses in the truths and mys- 
teries of religion, and were enacted at first by clerics and 
choristers. Dating back as far as recorded to the twelfth 
century, their popularity had become so wide-spread that 
pious confraternities were organized in every town for their 
proper performance. As long as they remained under the 
tutelage of the Church, they retained their original character, 
but later, falling into the hands of laymen and exhibited in 
public squares, simply as means of popular amusement, they 
lost their prime purpose, and, taking on new elements, de- 
generated into burlesque and buffooneries, and often into 
irreverences, with the consequence that in their merited dis- 
repute, they no longer held the respect of the better class, and 
came under the ban of religion. 

From these Mystery and Miracle Plays were evolved 
another class of religious dramas, commonly known as ' ' Mor- 

[286] 



scene ii. A SECRET INTERVIEW 

alities. ' ' More perfect in nature and more artistic in struct- 
ure, they consisted of allegories, in which human virtues and 
vices were personified in action. They were in vogue as late 
as the time of Elizabeth, and the Poet himself must have wit- 
nessed many of them at Stratford, and, taking part in them, 
have become aware of his love and taste for the stage. These 
Moralities were efficient precursors of the modern drama, 
which, originating in rude comedy and tragedy about the 
middle of the sixteenth century, Shakespeare brought to per- 
fection before the close of the same. This new-born drama, 
inheriting many crudities and extravagances from the Moral- 
ities, had its "Termagants," and "Herods," and clowns, to 
excite the laughter of groundlings. The written drama was 
often interpolated with extemporaneous efforts of the actor, 
and the serious action and progress of a tragedy were not 
unf requently halted by low buffoonery ; for comedians were 
ever ready to exhibit their wit in combats with any personage 
of the audience. Against these crying abuses, the Poet was 
inexorable, and in the person of Hamlet, pronounces in just 
anger their utter condemnation. 

A SECRET INTERVIEW 

At the entrance of Polonius and the young spies, who 
are ever officiously intruding themselves upon him, Hamlet 
suddenly terminates his instruction to the Players. To rid 
himself of his unwelcome visitors, he sends them on an idle 
errand, and hails Horatio. In the interview which almost 
follows on the heels of the violent outbreak against Ophelia, 
he reveals by contrast the amiable side of his character, in a 
touching manifestation of devotion and strong affection for 
his one trusted friend. By nature capable of strong friend- 
ship, he was keenly sensitive to his isolation, and longed for 
companionship. He was loath to mingle in the repugnant 

[ 287 ] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act in. 

life of a degenerated court, whose Queen had lost his respect 
and confidence, and whose hated King, suspicious and treach- 
erous, was with his sycophantic ministers and spies always on 
the alert against him. Ophelia's late disclosure of want of 
integrity, and of mental capacity to grasp the meaning of the 
visible distress and tumult of his soul, had compelled him in 
distrust and soreness of heart to turn from her, the one woman 
whom he yet sincerely loved, and on whose fidelity he had 
confidently counted. Hence, thrown back upon himself, and 
ruminating in melancholy mood upon the frailty of human 
nature, and the evils dominant in social life around him, he 
felt like a solitary wanderer in a foreign land, or again fan- 
cied himself a floating wreck adrift upon the" roaring waters, 
where, amid the deepening gloom, he saw no star of hope to 
guide him, nor haven to invite his wave-worn bark. 

A sense of utter loneliness turns him, athirst for friend- 
ship, to the brave and true Horatio. In him he seeks a refuge 
from the tempest raging within his soul. How in seclusion 
he outpours with grateful feeling his mind and heart to his 
sturdy friend of tranquil mind and even temper ! How glow- 
ingly he admires Horatio's noble qualities so opposite to his 
own ! With genuine pleasure, he dilates upon his serenity, his 
vigor, and unfailing constancy of friendship. As a weary 
wanderer in a desert wild, he finds in him a veritable oasis, 
where gloom gives way to sunshine ; where distress of soul 
finds comfort ; and where an aromatic balm soothes his pain- 
ed heart and feelings. Strong is his delight in the one sole 
friend, whose fidelity has the sterling ring of an unadulter- 
ated coin. In him at least he finds a man " whose blood and 
judgment are so well commingled that they are not a pipe 
for fortune 's finger to sound what stop she please. ' ' Such a 
friend is Horatio, and he promises to wear him in his inmost 
heart, aye, and grapple and bind him to his soul "with hoops 

[ 288 ] 



scene ii. A SECRET INTERVIEW 

of steel. ' ' When Horatio, in his usual modesty and diffidence 
of self, manifests surprise at Hamlet's high encomium and 
warm appreciation of his friendship, the Prince, with the in- 
tent of proving that his utterances are guileless, and unex- 
aggerated, and sincere, gives us a beautiful exposition of his 
friend's character. 

By this private interview with Horatio, Hamlet reveals 
his purpose of having the play performed before the King. 
The subjective school, which ascribes to the Prince an habit- 
ual procrastination, because of weakness of will, is wont to 
assume that the play, as well as his doubts concerning the 
nature and veracity of the ghost, are but makeshifts to ex- 
cuse his delay in the duty of "revenge. ' ' Such criticism ignores 
the fact which Shakespeare so much insists upon, that Hamlet 
is a very religious man, most keen of conscience, who would 
not even dream of committing a doubtful murder. This 
characteristic is in the eyes of the Poet so important for the 
proper understanding of the drama that, lest we forget it, he 
dwells upon it again for the third time. Hamlet's delay is 
prompted, not indeed by the spirit of procrastination, but by 
most sane reasons which he states to Horatio. As a Christian, 
he explains that the ghostly visitor may be "a damned 
ghost," a soul sentenced for its wickedness to damnation, or 
again a fallen angel, or evil spirit intent in either case upon 
leading him to crime. The command of the ghost, which 
seems so wicked, offers in itself every probability that it is a 
spirit of hell. Hamlet, therefore, hesitates to obey before he 
has solved his most reasonable doubt, and to solve it, he has 
arduously prepared a mock tragedy, by which he hopes to 
unmask the supposed "occult guilt of Claudius." Summon- 
ing his trusted friend, before the opening of the play, he dis- 
closes the design, and seeks his prudent aid. Though after 
the interview with the ghost, he had declined to gratify the 

[289] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act hi. 

curiosity of Horatio, he seems later to have shared with him 
at least that part of the secret which involved his uncle's 
crime. Hence relying now upon his friend's known prudent 
judgment, he earnestly entreats him to watch the King dur- 
ing the critical moment of the play, to rivet his eyes upon his 
countenance, and note his action, so that, by comparing judg- 
ments later, they may come more readily to some safe con- 
clusion concerning his innocence or guilt. 

THE ENTRANCE OF THE ROYAL PARTY 

The dialogue is suddenly terminated by "a nourish of 
trumpets, which announces the approach of the royal party. 
As the King and Queen enter the reception hall to the music 
of a Danish march, Hamlet hurriedly cautions his friend to 
choose a fitting position for observation, while he himself re- 
sumes at once his usual " antic disposition," and supports it 
with a reckless levity throughout the scene. This sudden 
passing from his discourse with Horatio, which is so admir- 
able and remarkable for its sanity, to heedless frivolity in 
word and action, is another index which points to the fact 
that the Prince is only feigning madness. To strengthen the 
belief the Poet causes Hamlet to say in confidence to the friend, 
who alone is aware of the true situation, "They are coming 
to the play; I must be idle." I must assume a foolishness; 
play light-headedness, or madness. 

This playing the fool with dexterity and enacting in per- 
fect sanity the role of a madman, was not only easy for a man 
of superb mental attainments, who is portrayed as a master 
of the dramatic art, moving among players and himself often 
enacting a part; but it was also a means of pleasure and 
amusement and, in his present situation, of the greatest ad- 
vantage; for thus masked, he could lead on the King, give 

[290] 



scene ii. THE ROYAL PARTY 

free play to his wit and irony, and so relieve his irritated mind 
and pent-up feelings. 

While in the presence of the court, awaiting the opening 
of the play, Hamlet adapts himself, as usual, to the thoughts 
and suspicions of each of the characters with whom he con- 
verses. When in an indulgent tone and terms of good will, 
Claudius asks : ' ' How fares our cousin Hamlet f ' ' The latter 
playing upon the equivocal term "fare," replies irrelevantly, 
and his words of enigma and of irony, uttered in a frivolous 
strain before the courtiers, seem couched in disrespect to 
Claudius. He lives, affirms the Prince, like the chameleon, an 
animal which, because of its ability to live long without food, 
is popularly supposed to exist on air. He too, "promised 
crammed" lives on promises, empty and thin as air. His 
allusion is, no doubt, to the King's promise to treat him with 
all kindness, to consider him as his own son, and to make him 
heir to the throne. Whether or not Claudius recognized in Ham- 
let 's words an expression of disappointed ambition and a veiled 
charge of unfaithfulness to promises, he, nevertheless, con- 
sidered them uncourteous and offensive, and replies in 
unwonted acerbity. But, heedless of the words of the per- 
plexed King, Hamlet ignores him, and, suddenly turning away 
in disdain, gives his attention to Polonius. 

Always delighting in the entanglement of the old minis- 
ter, he now begins to toy with him, and in a few telling words, 
to expose him to the ridicule of the whole court. The vanity 
of the boastful diplomat is displayed in his bragging of the 
part which he took in a play at the university, where he was 
reputed a good actor. When Hamlet inquires what character 
he enacted, Polonius replies in his usual vaunting mood: "I 
did enact Julius Caesar; I was killed in the Capitol; Brutus 
killed me." Then, rejoins the Prince, "it was a brute part of 

[291] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

Brutus to kill so capital a calf." At this sally all are com- 
pelled to laugh in merriment. 

The Queen, however, comes to the rescue. To silence the 
biting wit of her son, for whom in his supposed mental afflic- 
tion, she feels a motherly affection, she presses him to come 
and sit beside her. He declines the invitation and, to con- 
firm Polonius in his false theory, addresses Ophelia in mock 
gallantry, and takes a position near her. The ruse was suc- 
cessful; for at once her father remarks in confidence to the 
King : " 0, ho ! do you mark that ? " It is, he is sure, another 
proof of his fond hypothesis. 

Though Ophelia is of little concern to Hamlet at the pres- 
ent moment, engrossed as he is in his soul's all-absorbing pur- 
pose of catching the conscience of the King, he takes the posi- 
tion, because it is the best vantage ground from which to scan 
the countenance of Claudius during the critical action of the 
play. If Ophelia thinks Hamlet merry, it is a merriment as- 
sumed to conceal from her and the court his anxious purpose. 
In irony he asks why should he not be merry, when four 
months after his father's death, his mother can be so gay and 
cheerful. Since the Queen and court have spurned the ac- 
customed period of royal mourning, he will also doff his suit 
of black, don a gay attire, and become a maker of ballads, as 
more befitting his surroundings. There is- yet hope that a 
man 's memory may outlive him by half a year ; but even then 
"by our Lady" (Blessed Mary, the Virgin Mother) he must 
build churches, or else suffer the fate of the hobby-horse, 
whose epitaph is, * ' For, 0, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot. ' ' 

These words form the first line of a ballad written by 
some wag of the time, and relate to the Reformers' suppres- 
sion of the May-games and Morris-dancers in which the hobby- 
horse was a prominent character. It is again alluded to in 
Love's Labor Lost. The hobby-horse of the May-games, says 

[292] 



scene ii. A PROLOGUE 

Knight, required a person of considerable skill to manage him, 
although his body was only of wicker-work and his head and 
neck of pasteboard. The animal was considered so dangerous 
by the Puritans that, exerting all their power, they success- 
fully banished him from the May-games. The people, how- 
ever, clung to him with wonderful pertinacity ; and it is most 
probably for this reason that when an individual cherishes a 
small piece of folly, which he is unwilling to give up, it is 
called his hobby-horse. 

A PROLOGUE 

The players, a king and queen, now enter, and enact a 
dumb show. Like an olden prologue, it is designed to explain 
the main action of the tragedy. This introductory pantomime, 
common to old court plays of England, was also a favorite on 
the Danish stage, and is known to have survived as late as the 
seventeenth century. In the present instance, the silent play- 
ers briefly reveal by mimic action the barest outlines of the 
plot or argument. Upon a king asleep on a bank of flowers, 
steals a murderer, who pours poison in his ears and noiselessly 
departs. The queen, who is in collusion with the murderer, 
enters, and, followed by the poisoner and other mutes, makes 
much ado with them in passionate action over the dead body 
of the king. The pantomime closes with the murderer win- 
ning, after a brief wooing, the heart of the queen. 

The dumb-show proves a dark puzzle to Ophelia, and, 
therefore, Hamlet informs her that it is " miching mallecho, ' ' 
which she understands to mean a hidden wickedness, or secret 
crime, and so it truly is in a double sense ; for the mock tragedy 
is designed to reveal not only the Prince's secret plot, but 
also the secret crime of Claudius. As the prologue opens, he 
further assures her that she shall learn all from the players, 
because from the very nature of their art, they can keep no 

[293] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

secrets. For while dramatic art supposes players, shut out 
from the outer world, to be wholly engaged in conversation 
with each other, with no intruder to hear their words or see 
their actions, they are, in fact, all in the face of an audience, 
which cannot fail to see their every act, and hear their most 
confidential secrets. 

Hamlet is soon wholly distracted from the presence of 
Ophelia, because, with eyes intently fixed upon the King, his 
mind is entirely engrossed in watching his movements. Hence 
he is listless, and his few replies, if thoughtless and irrelevant, 
serve to hide his secret purpose and the terrible anxiety which 
riots in his expectant soul. 

THE MOUSE TRAP 

Heedless of Ophelia's gentle reprehension, Hamlet utters 
a caustic jest in allusion to their former love, and lapses into 
silence at the entrance of the Player-king and queen. The 
dialogue, he hopes will awaken in his mother the memory of 
her former life of love and faithfulness. An honored life of 
thirty years of wedded happiness should cause her to realize 
its contrast to her present shameful guilty state. The Player- 
king, in serious illness, is conscious of his waning powers, and 
expresses a presentiment that his sands of life are nearly run. 
He, however, assures the Player-queen that, loved and honor- 
ed, she, perhaps, may find another husband as loving and as 
true. The Player-queen with passionate impulse energetically 
protests against his words, because they seem to argue treason 
in her heart; and, in order to confirm her loyal love, calls 
down curses on her head, if she ever wed again, affirming that 
''none wed the second (husband) but who kill the first.' ' 
Uneasy and visibly affected by these telltale words, Gertrude 
casts an inquiring glance at Hamlet, who with eyes intently 
fixed upon her countenance, is anxiously watching to catch in 

[294] 



scene ii. THE MOUSE TRAP 

her troubled looks and flushing face even the faintest flash by 
which he may see her guilty conscience unwillingly revealed. 
Reading upon her face the handwriting of her troubled 
thoughts, he gives them expression with telling force, when 
with eyes piercing her very soul, he mutters in burning words 
audible to her, ''wormwood! wormwood!" 

After this sudden and brief interruption, the Player-king 
proceeds to assure his consort that, while now admitting the 
truth of her words and her present firm resolve to live in per- 
petual widowhood, nevertheless, relying on his knowledge of 
the fickleness of the human heart and the natural instability 
of human resolutions, he still cannot help but think that, un- 
der changed circumstances, she too will change her mind ; for 
our fates often running contrary to our wills, leave us our 
resolves, but frustrate their fulfilment. Hence, he concludes 
by affirming that, though she now swear never to wed a second 
husband, this resolve shall die when her "first lord is dead." 

The Player-queen, in response, swears to the eternal loyal- 
ty of her love and the infrangibility of her resolve. In proof 
whereof, she neither hesitates to invoke many curses and im- 
precations on herself, nor to pray Heaven to let eternal strife 
pursue her, both here and in the world to come, if, once a 
widow, she ever be a wife again. These words as Hamlet per- 
ceives, strongly affect his mother, and in steady gaze he watch- 
es her disturbed feelings, which he further irritates by the 
terrible irony of his accusing words, "if she should break it 
now ! ' ' 

Ignoring Claudius throughout the dialogue, Hamlet had 
centered his attention wholly upon Gertrude. Though the 
ghost had revealed the fact that she had been faithless to his 
father; that, while counterfeiting the sincerest affection, she 
had yielded to the illicit love of his seducing uncle, he was 
still unaware of the extent of her guilt : whether she had ac- 

[ 295 ] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

tively or passively countenanced the murder, or whether in 
full innocence of the foul crime, she had contracted an inces- 
tuous marriage with the murderer. Having learned from her 
troubled looks and restlessness, that she recognized herself 
in the Player-queen, he now suddenly turns upon her and 
startles her by the suddenness and vehemence of his sarcastic 
question, " Madam, how like you this play?" His question 
was a shaft barbed with bitter irony, which quickened the 
memory of her infidelity to his loving father. Gertrude in 
surprise, falters for the moment at the fierce utterance, only 
to reply, ' ' The lady doth protest too much, methinks. ' ' These 
telltale words of covered guilt prove that she has recognized 
in the Player-queen her own faithless love ; and Hamlet, mind- 
ful of her disdain to mourn the memory of his honored father 
and of her shameful hasty marriage, shoots another shaft 
steeped in ridicule and raillery, in the words "0, but sheTl 
keep her word." 

Claudius, too, in guilty conscience takes alarm. During 
the introductory pantomime, he had been distracted partly hy 
the loquacious Polonius, and partly by Hamlet's attention to 
Ophelia. Hence, he did not notice the silent actors in their 
dumb and brief portrayal of the plot. He had since, however, 
heard enough of the dialogue of the Player-king and queen to 
sniff offense; Gertrude's evident disturbance at the pointed 
reference to the Player-queen's hasty marriage with her crim- 
inal paramour inspired a fear lest there be a further design 
to unkennel the secret of his soul. This is manifest from his 
eager questions and demand to know the plot before the play 
proceeds. Hamlet in a light and airy mood assures him, that, 
as all is done with merriment and jest, there can be no possible 
offense. Nevertheless, from anxiety of mind, he fears lest Claud- 
ius, who seems alarmed by suspicions, may interrupt the play 
before the enactment of the poisoning scene, and so thwart his 

[296] 



scene ii. ENTRAPPED 

well laid plot. Hence his ingenuity is supremely taxed. He 
must at once disarm the King of his suspicions and his fears, 
and detain him nolens volens to the end. He is equal to the 
task, and when Claudius, manifestly worried and still unassur- 
ed, gruffly demands the name of the play, the Prince in play- 
ful satire replies in enigmatic words, "The Mousetrap." 

With a deep penetration of the wily character of his un- 
cle, Hamlet relies on one bold, but successful stroke. He 
braves the King, and shames him, and in defiance challenges 
him to interrupt the play at the risk of a public confession of 
his guilt. The interlude, he says is but the image of a murder 
done long long ago in a foreign land, and though the knavish 
crime be heinous, why should his royal highness, whose soul is 
stainless as his own, fear its re-enactment. Such a play, if it 
make the guilty wince, will leave the innocent unaffected. His 
defiant ruse triumphs; and Claudius unwillingly remains to 
see the play continued. 

ENTRAPPED 

As the play proceeds, the approaching crisis rouses Ham- 
let to the greatest nervous tension. With glowing mind and 
throbbing heart, he fiercely struggles to repress wild emotions, 
which, if manifested at this critical moment, might terminate 
the play before Lucianus enters to speak his sixteen lines. 
His eyes rigidly fixed upon the uneasy King, his attention, all 
absorbed by his overmastering purpose, is not distracted for 
an instant even by the words of Ophelia. If he speak to her at 
all, it is to ease the tumult of his thoughts and, under the mask 
of an assumed indifference and calm, to bridge over the mom- 
ents of intense suspense while awaiting the expected climax 
when he may release his pent-up thoughts and feelings. 

His first reply to Ophelia, in words cynical and half am- 
biguous, is an allusion to their former love, and must have 

[297] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act in. 

proved an unwelcome, if not a bitter jest. His unseemly lan- 
guage is prompted, not only by his wish to impress upon her 
and others the reality of his madness, but also by the bitter 
feeling which arises from his knowledge of her shallow and 
imperfect love. From her weakness of character, he has come 
to consider her scarcely more than a puppet, or ' ' image ' ' con- 
trolled by a string in the hand of an old dotard. In his last 
reply, he tells her she must take her husband for better for 
worse, words which refer to the Catholic Ritual of sacramental 
marriage. This sacrament, which bars every notion of pos- 
sible divorce, is entered uito by the contracting parties, when 
each in turn makes before God the following solemn and relig- 
ious vow: "I promise to take thee for my lawful wife (hus- 
band) to have and to hold from this day forward, for better 
for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till 
death do us part." These words were in part changed in the 
new ritual of the State Church of Shakespeare's day. 

At the entrance of Lucianus, the poisoner, Hamlet's ner- 
vous tension reaches the extreme. The sight of the actor, 
wasting time in tragic attitudes and horrid mien, overtaxes 
his patience. He commands him to proceed to action, at the 
same time giving him the cue to the momentous lines, which, 
for the clear circumstantial portrayal of the crime of Claud- 
ius, he himself had inserted in the interlude. While Lucianus 
pours the poison in the ears of the sleeping king, Hamlet with 
the intent of heightening its effect, suddenly leaps forward, 
and, with gaze fixed on Claudius, points at him, while exclaim- 
ing in tremulous excitement and impassioned words: "he pois- 
ons him in the garden for his crown ! You shall see anon how 
the murderer wins the love of the queen ! ' ' 

Claudius in a daze, as if struck by some unseen hand, rises 
hastily in wild bewilderment, and with manifest affright cuts 
short the lines of Lucianus. At his action, Hamlet thunders in 

[298] 



scene ii. COME SOME MUSIC 

fierce sarcastic tones, ' ' What, frighted with false fire ! ' ' The 
Queen from anxious concern inquires, ' ' How fares my lord ? ' ' 
The courtiers supposing Claudius the victim of some sudden 
malady, crowd about him, and Polonius hastily shambles for- 
ward, and, with excited words and gestures, commands the 
players to cease the performance. 

At the sight of his crime revealed in every circumstance 
and of the feverish excitement of Hamlet, whose words with 
wild gesticulation forced upon his attention each secret detail^ 
Claudius feels the mask torn from his face, and stands re- 
vealed a criminal, a horrid fratricide, and usurper of the 
throne. Surprised and appalled at his exposure, like Macbeth 
at the sight of Banquo's ghost, he struggles with a fearful riot 
in his soul. In quick succession, shame, fear, horror, anger, 
and despair with rushing tumult rack his heart, confuse his 
mind, rob him of speech and un-man his trembling swaying 
form. Around him all seems dark as the blackness of his soul, 
and groping helplessly about, his repeated cry for light is re- 
echoed by the courtiers, who, while shouting amid disorder for 
lights, lights, hurry away the conscience-stricken man to his 
private apartments. As the Queen remained unaffected by 
the poisoning scene, it may be reasonably supposed that she 
was ignorant of her husband's murder . 

COME, SOME MUSIC! 

As the King is led away in a sense of overpowering con- 
fusion, Hamlet looks after him and sings aloud snatches of an 
old song: "Why, let the stricken deer go weep." He feels the 
impulse of murder in his heart, and breaks out in loud, iron- 
ical laughter, which, ringing in cruel echoes through the hall, 
falls with accusing terror on the ears of the retreating crimin- 
al. 

Again alone with Horatio, Hamlet, of pensive nature or- 
[299] 






THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

dinarily so calm and self-controlled, revels in unrestrained 
joy and merriment. A very recent critic who follows the 
theory of Hamlet's real dementia, sees in his present conduct 

"The most striking of all the examples of his madness. 
Hamlet was now pretty mad. As in similar circumstances 
in Act I. reaction was marked by ' wild and whirling words, ' 
an antic disposition, and insane frivolity, precisely so was 
it on the present occasion." Trench's Commentary on 
Hamlet. 

Such criticism mistakes small things for great, a molehill for 
a mountain. It may be justified by certain erratic representa- 
tions on the stage, which are employed to heighten dramatic 
effect and to amuse the popular fancy; but it is unsupported 
by Shakespeare's text. The two scenes present the greatest 
disparity in action and circumstances. In the one, after the 
appearance of the ghost and its appalling revelations, Hamlet 
assumed an 'antic disposition,' used 'wild and whirling 
words,' and indulged in 'insane frivolity' for the purpose of 
concealing from Horatio his terrible oppression of mind and 
heart ; in the other, he is neither mad in the sense of angry, nor 
mad in the sense of insane, but joyous and mirthful; and 
these sentiments never drive men mad, nor are they character- 
istics of dementia. His feelings are natural and not feigned, 
and are shared by Horatio, who understands him; for his 
words are not 'wild and whirling,' but very sane and pertin- 
ent. A sudden exultation of heart at his signal triumph in un- 
kennelling the secret crime of Claudius, unshackles his long 
pent-up feelings, and in the reaction he naturally indulges his 
joyous mood, and yields to extravagant mirth and playfulness, 
as a boy who, when released from the mental tension and 
restraints of school, frisks, shouts, and gambols in wanton 
gayety from the very joy of his recovered freedom. 

First, Hamlet naturally manifests an elation of mind at 
the signal triumph of his dramatic stratagem. The play, he 

[300] 



scene ii. AN URGENT MESSAGE 

says, proves that, if fortune, like a Turk, should ever turn 
against him, he may well, as a born actor, claim fel- 
lowship with professional artists. Next, in playful mood, a 
Pythias, he sings to Damon how his Jove-father was supplant- 
ed, not by an ass, but worse, by a very "pajock." The peacock 
was by common opinion, in Shakespeare's day, a bird of evil 
repute. "Its head was the head of a serpent, its voice was 
the voice of a fiend, and its pace, the stealth of a thief." In 
popular works of natural history, it was pictured as uniting in 
itself the worst passions, inordinate pride and envy, and un- 
natural cruelty and lust. Hence, it has been affirmed that in 
the whole fauna of the time, Hamlet could not have selected 
the name of a bird or beast that expressed with greater em- 
phasis the hated union of corrupt passions and evil life in the 
man that usurped the throne of Denmark. Hamlet now, no 
longer doubts the crime of Claudius, and, rejoicing in his dis- 
covery, lays a wager in merriment on the veracity of the 
ghost : 

"0 good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a thou- 
sand pound." 10 Conscious of his exaltation of mind and 
highly excited feelings, he calls for music to soothe to rest 
the tumult of overwrought emotions: 

"Ah, ha! Come, some music! Come, the recorders!" 

AN URGENT MESSAGE 

If the King at the poisoning scene was, unlike Macbeth, 
preserved by prudent cunning from fatal words of self-con- 
fession, it was due to his greater skill of hypocrisy ; but, when 
alone with the Queen in his private apartments, he throws 
aside the mask, and yields to an unrestrained outbreak of his 

10 In the original text we read: 

"Aye, Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word 
For more than all the coin in Denmark". 

[301] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

feelings of anger and chagrin. Raving in distempered fury 
at Hamlet, at his own foolhardy leniency in dealing with a 
madman, and, berating even his consort for her indulgent 
negligence in watching over her stricken son, he commands her 
to seek him at once, and, in a maternal but energetic inter- 
view, to impose restraints upon him. For this effect the Queen 
commissions Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to summon Hamlet 
to meet her that very night in private audience, and to give 
an explanation of his strange and unpardonable conduct. 

The entrance of these messengers and quondam friends, 
but now royal spies, produces a sudden change in Hamlet. 
Like a blighting blast, their very presence suddenly congeals 
the warmth of his mirthful and boisterous mood into a frozen 
reserve, tinctured by a partially concealed disdain and scorn. 
Seeing these representatives and willing tools of a bloody 
criminal, clothed in the traitorous guise of friendship, daily 
pestering him by their espionage with the hope of worming 
out his secret, he greets them with a chilling air, and answers 
them in open raillery. The trialogue is a literary masterpiece 
in which every word of the Prince falls with the ' ' sweep of an 
archangel's sword." When needlessly informed of the King's 
"marvellous distemper," he replies in scorn, that, if the 
King's distemper needs purgation, they exhibit great folly in 
summoning him rather than a physician: if he be called to 
diagnose his distemper he will prescribe a further purgation 
that will throw him into a worse choleric state. The irrepres- 
sible pair find these words unintelligible. 

"I entreat you to speak less wildly," says Guildenstern 
in irritated feelings. 

"I am tame, sir," replies Hamlet in mock deference, 
"proceed." 

As soon as they announce their mission from his mother, 
who is in sore affliction, he receives them with a display of 

[ 302 ] 



scene ii. AN URGENT MESSAGE 

princely courtesy, and greets them with words whose tone 
clearly reveals an ironical welcome. In vexation they protest 
against this courtesy. "It is not," they say, "of the right 
breed. If you give us not a wholesome answer, we shall end 
the business." 

Hamlet, playing upon their words, expresses surprise: 
' ' How is it that you expect a wholesome or sane reply from a 
man whose mind you know is diseased?" Then suddenly 
turning upon them, he sharply questions in disdainful words, 
which clearly unmask their hireling trade: "You come from 
my mother, then no more ! but to the point, what says she ? ' ' 

' ' She says, your behavior has struck her with wonder and 
astonishment. ' ' 

"0, wonderful son," cries Hamlet, "that can so astonish 
a mother ! But speak, what is the sequel of this mother's aston- 
ishment? Come, impart!" 

"She desires," replies Guildenstern, "to speak with you 
before you go to bed. ' ' 

"We shall obey her," exclaimed the Prince, "with no 
less alacrity, than if she were ten times our mother. ' ' And in 
impatience he tartly demands, "Have you any further trade 
with us?" 

Evidently, the bond of affection that existed between 
them in their life at school, is shattered ; and from the ashes 
of the dead friendship Hamlet feels arising an antipathy, 
which is fast growing into abhorrence and even into actual 
hostility. Aware of his open displeasure, the courtiers deem 
it opportune to appeal to the memory of his former love. His 
reply is a jesting allusion to the catechism of the State 
Church, by which he intends to avow, rather than to conceal 
his feeling, that he is using his tongue in a way forbidden, as 
much "as picking and stealing" are forbidden to the hands. 
Under the cover of friendship, they injudiciously continue 

[303] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act in. 

to prod him to disclose the cause of his distemper, assuring 
him that failure to share his grief with friends, will certainly 
force the King to bar the door upon his liberty. Deftly 
falling in with their suspicions, Hamlet assigns the loss of the 
crown as the cause of his grief, a cause, which, though the 
least of his wrongs, they will best understand : 

' ' How can that be ? " asks Bosencrantz in surprise, ' ' Have 
you not the King's own word for your succession in 
Denmark?" 

"Ay, Ay, Sir," retorts Hamlet, "but know you not the 
musty proverb : ' Whilst grass doth grow, oft starves the silly 
steed.' " 

EASY AS LYING 

The entrance of the musicians interrupts the trialogue, 
and leaves the royal emissaries baffled in the attempt to 
penetrate Hamlet's guise, and to fan his chilling reserve into 
glowing warmth. Though roused all the while to extreme 
irritation by the scarcely concealed purpose of his traitorous 
friends, the Prince had muffled his feelings, and, while pre- 
serving an exterior calm, had treated them with the mock 
gravity of princely courtesy. But now his demeanor is changed. 
He turns in glad relief to give the musicians a hearty welcome. 
Taking one of their instruments, he sharply addresses Guild- 
enstern : ' ' Come apart, sir, I would have a word or two with 
you in private." Of the two spies, he had been the most 
offensively forward and insistent on forcing himself on Ham- 
let, and, therefore, the latter, in utmost resentment, plies him 
with galling interrogatories: "Why do you go about, pursuing 
me like an animal in the chase ? Why are you ever bent on get- 
ting to the windward of me, as if to drive me into a snare ? ' ' 

Surprised as well as abashed at his heated words of ex- 
postulation, Guildenstern feels conscious of his offense, but 

[304] 



scene ii. EASY AS LYING 

in courtly style pleads great love as an excuse for his unwel- 
come boldness. Hamlet, however, penetrates his hypocrisy and 
sees the falsehood. The flute which he holds he now presses 
upon the unwilling courtier and insists on his playing it, 
showing him how — how easy it is — and while gazing search- 
ingly into his eyes, exclaims with ironical emphasis : ' ' 'Tis as 
easy as lying. ' ' The words startle the courtier and bring the 
blush of shame to his face ; for even now he feels himself un- 
masked as a master in the art of lying. 

After Guildenstern had repeatedly and earnestly pleaded 
his inability to play even upon so simple an instrument as the 
flute, Hamlet proceeds in great irritation to interpret the par- 
able with remarkable and unmistakable words of ridicule, 
"How unworthy you think of me ! Zounds, (the holy wounds 
of Christ), do you take me for a simpleton? Do you fancy 
me simpler than this tiny reed upon which you cannot play? 
Its secret power is a mystery to you, and yet you attempt to 
strike my note, to find my compass, and to run the gamut of 
my thoughts and feelings, even to the deepest note in the hope 
of reaching the heart of my secret. ' Sblood ', by the Euchar- 
ist, do you think I am easier than this tiny reed? You may 
fret me, but you cannot play upon me." His passionate 
words, so terribly blunt and full of spirited resentment, over- 
power the courtier with confusion and reduce him abashed to 
painful silence. 

The strained situation was opportunely relieved by the 
hurried entrance of the old chancellor. His unexpected ap- 
pearance brought glad relief to the young spies; for it not 
only distracted Hamlet's attention from them, but also af- 
forded time for his mood of ill feeling to die away. They had 
come at the command of the Queen ; but the fussy old minister 
was a self-appointed messenger, and, shuffling along in haste 
he hurries in, blurting out stale news. After suffering annoy- 
ance from the plaguing spies, the Prince was about to dismiss 

[ 305 ] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act hi. 

them summarily in the hope of gaining, since the play, some 
moments for reflection upon his future course of action; 
hence, the inopportune intrusion of the babbling old chamber- 
lain was more than usually unwelcome, and in utter weariness 
of soul, he greets him with the deprecation "God bless you, 
sir!" Such expressions as "God bless us," and "God bless 
you," are habitual utterances of good Catholics, when sur- 
prised by some sudden and unexpected evil. His exclamation, 
prompted by his harassed feelings, clearly indicates his de- 
pression of spirits and vexation at the unwelcome intrusion of 
the old minister. 

Polonius seems never to have merited the respect of the 
Prince, even during the life of the elder Hamlet. His active 
alliance against him after the murder, his support of the suc- 
cession of Claudius, as well as his constant over-officiousness 
and low intrigue, made him especially odious to the Prince. 
Heedless of the old man's urgent message, Hamlet begins to 
mystify him with sportive raillery. The chamberlain in turn, 
desirous of humoring the Prince in his supposed malady, 
adopts the practice, common in dealing with madmen, of as- 
senting to all they say; but Hamlet aware of his disposition, 
takes the offensive, and, leading him on from one absurd con- 
tradiction to another, induces him to affirm that yonder cloud 
bears the shape of a camel, a weasel, and a whale. Amid the 
merriment, the young courtiers are glad to forget their casti- 
gation. During their laughter at Polonius, Hamlet gives us 
another flash of his sanity by the side remark : ' ' They fool me 
to the full extent of my disposition." He then dismisses the 
trio curtly with the message that he will see his mother by 
and by. 

I WILL SPEAK DAGGERS 

In the high glee which followed the success of his strata- 
gem in regard to Claudius, Hamlet had yielded to an exalta- 

[306] 



scene ii. I WILL SPEAK DAGGERS 

tion of mind, which prompted him to give full play to his long 
suppressed feelings; but when the pressure of the unnatural 
strain caused him to call for music to soothe his overwrought 
excitement, his purpose was thwarted, as we have seen, by the 
intrusion of the spies and Polonius ; hence, no time was given 
him for reflection upon the condition of affairs, nor upon the 
next move he should make in his purpose of revenge. 
Throughout these interviews, he had with a rare mastery of 
self veiled under an external composure, the excitement of his 
mind and heart. But now, alone and free from all restraint, 
he pauses for some moments on his way to meet his mother, 
and in soliloquy discloses the bloody nature of his thoughts. 
" 'Tis the witching time of night," when graves yawn forth 
their dead, and hell itself spreads contagion upon the world for 
the crimes done in the pall of darkness. Ruminating on the 
shameful disgrace of his mother and the heinous crime of his 
uncle, his burning thoughts so inflame his mind and sensibili- 
ties that in riotous fantasies and feelings, he could " drink 
hot blood," and do a deed so horrible that the world would 
quake to look upon it. The thought of his mother, whom he 
shall presently confront, and charge with shameful guilt, 
makes him realize the bloody purpose of his raging feelings. 
The soul of Nero seems, he thinks, to animate him, and he 
fears lest it shall lead him in the coming interview to a similar 
cruel and unnatural action. The accursed deed of the bloody 
tyrant forces on his mind a striking parallel: Nero was the 
murderer of his own mother, Agrippina, who after her hus- 
band's death, had married her uncle, the emperor Claudius. 
A Nero and a Claudius, foul names of cruelty and crime, so 
rouse his frame to an overpowering impulse of bloodthirsti- 
ness, that, actually afraid of losing mastery of himself, he 
with hands pressing upon his palpitating heart, invokes it in 
a passionate address, not to lose its nature. No, no ! He must 

[307] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act hi. 

not be a matricide ! His feverish sense hears again the voice 
of his father's ghost: 

il Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive 
Against thy mother aught ; leave her to heaven 
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge 
To prick and sting her." 

Uncertain, whether his mother was privy to his father's 
murder, he is resolved to seek the truth or falsity of his sus- 
picion. In dutiful obedience to his father's spirit, he will be 
cruel, but not unnatural. He will not use, but speak daggers 
to her soul. Though she be guilty, she is still his mother, and 
as a Christian son, he will speak burning words that shall fire 
her being, now torpid in incestuous crime, and inflame her 
heart with a virtuous sense of shame and horror, in order 
that, enkindling anew in her weak nature the Christian's love 
of good and abhorrence of evil, he may rouse in her sufficient 
strength of moral courage to break her sinful union with the 
horrid fratricide, and return to her former virtuous life. 



[308] 



scene in. A ROYAL STRATAGEM 



SCENE THIRD 

A ROYAL STRATAGEM 

If Hamlet by means of the interlude gained his purpose 
of unmasking the guilt of the criminal, he thereby also 
revealed to Claudius the fact that he knew the secret of his 
crime ; and this disclosure brought him further trouble. No 
sooner had the King "in his retirement," recovered from his 
"marvellous distemper," than he took immediate steps to 
guard himself against a man who, armed with such danger- 
ous knowledge, roamed in the guise of lunacy with the freedom 
of the court. Suspicion and actual fear of the madman, now 
filled him with exaggerated alarm for his own personal 
safety. Always unscrupulous as to the means employed 
for the attainment of his purpose, he was, moreover by nature 
bold and decisive in action. At once his plan was formed. 
On the morrow, he will rid himself of this dangerous lunatic. 

Unless we grant the court of Claudius to have been re- 
markable for mental dullness, we must suppose that all were 
of one mind with him in his fear of personal danger. Such an 
opinion requires no abstruse reasoning. Aware of the sud- 
den and mysterious death of the elder Hamlet, and of his 
brother's hasty marriage with the widowed Queen, they wit- 
nessed the play of The Murder of Gonzago with its striking 
parallels, and the consequent strange confusion of the 
stricken Claudius, and observed Hamlet's tragic action and 
wild words of menace, all which were a gross insult to the 
King. Though joining in the general commotion and alarm 
which followed, they, as sycophantic courtiers, were wise 
enough to give their suspicious thoughts no words. Hence 
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern seemed not at all surprised to 

[309] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act in. 

hear the King express his fear of Hamlet, but even urged him 
to prudent caution. "I do not like him," says the King, 
"nor do I deem it safe for the good of others to let him fur- 
ther range in madness. Regard for the public weal demands 
that our sovereign power shall not be menaced hourly and 
subjected to imminent risks from the mad pranks of a lunatic 
prince. Wherefore I now commission you, my trusted' 
agents, to go with him to-morrow on an embassy to Eng- 
land." 

"We shall at once prepare," replies Guildenstern. In 
courtly terms he commends the fears of the King. They are 
most holy and religious. "As the sovereign of your subjects, 
you are bound in justice," he says, "to preserve them from 
danger; for their lives and well-being hang upon your 
majesty." 

Rosencrantz always the more courtly, next proceeds in 
servile flattery to expand the thought of his companion : "If 
a private citizen is bound to defend his life when jeopardized, 
how much more so a king on whose existence depends the life 
and good of all. In him, an absolute monarch, are so con- 
centrated all the functions of the State that he is one, as it 
were, with the State itself; hence, his death affects not him- 
self alone, but also the whole realm. His life is, therefore, 
paramount; since on it depends the weal or woe of his peo- 
ple ; for the King can never sigh but the nation groans, and if 
he fall, with him falls the State in "boisterous ruin." After 
this fulsome flattery, Claudius dismisses them with orders to 
prepare for a speedy voyage on the morrow. "He shall with- 
out delay put fetters upon his fears, as well as on the too free- 
footed madman." 

The courtiers on leaving the presence of the King, sud- 
denly come upon Polonius, who is hastening forward to dis- 
close a new stroke of diplomacy. The old chancellor, never 

[310] 



scene in. A ROYAL STRATAGEM 

doubting the power of his own statecraft, is ever anxious to 
swell his importance by making himself indispensable to his 
royal master. Finding Claudius recovered from the lately 
raging passion, he boastfully informs him of his design to 
resort again to his old system of espionage. Though his pet 
theory had been disproved to the satisfaction of Claudius, 
the wily minister was unwilling to admit his error; hence 
he still fondly hoped to prove by a new plot the truth of his 
assumption. 

The occasion is the prearranged secret interview between 
Hamlet and the Queen, in which the latter by virtue of her 
maternal authority is to tax severely the conduct of her son, 
and to expose to him the unwisdom and folly of his ways. 
Polonius, hurrying before the King, exclaims: "Hamlet is 
going to his mother's closet. I deem it prudent to conceal 
myself behind the curtains in the Queen's private apartment 
so as to hear all that passes. I am sure she will chide him 
severely. My intrusion, if seemingly strange and unbecoming, 
is excusable and even warrantable by the well-known partial- 
ity of a mother for her son. It is, therefore, a wise policy for 
a third party to overhear the interview and report it aright. ' ' 

With royal approval, the fatuous intruder hurries away 
in gleesome assurance of success. His parting words are a 
promise which he is not fated to fulfil. Of him Coleridge 
says : "Polonius' volunteer obtrusion of himself into this busi- 
ness while it is appropriate to his character, still itching after 
former importance, removes all likelihood that Hamlet should 
suspect his presence, and prevents us from making his death 
injure the prince in our opinion. ' ' 

Certain annotators see in the action of Polonius sufficient 
warrant for the conclusion that the Queen was not privy to 
the murder of her husband. But the more common opinion 
is that Shakespeare throughout the drama leaves the reader 

[311] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act in. 

free to form his own judgment concerning the guilt or inno- 
cence of the Queen. The present passage, if attentively con- 
sidered, will, we think, incline the reader 's judgment neither 
one way nor the other. Both Claudius and his minister, it is 
true, distrust the Queen; but the cause of this mistrust, the 
Poet, in the person of Polonius, expressly asserts to be noth- 
ing more nor less than the instinct of nature that makes a 
mother partial to her child. Hence, as Gertrude's love for 
her only son had often been forced upon the attention of the 
King and Polonius, they might justly suspect that her true 
mother's love might impede her from revealing anything of 
the secret interview that was prejudicial to the interests of 
Hamlet. 

This maternal partiality is, moreover, the only cause of 
distrust possible with Polonius for the reason that, wholly 
ignorant of the King's secret crime and of Hamlet's secret 
knowledge of the same, he can not be supposed to think of 
the Queen's innocence or complicity in a murder of which 
he himself is altogether ignorant. Far otherwise is the case 
with Claudius. He alone knew whether she was innocent, or 
guilty. If she were guilty, he had no other motive to mis- 
trust her than the one assigned; if she were innocent, he 
might well fear that a loving son would communicate his 
discovery of the secret murder to a mother who was so closely 
concerned. Such suspicion on the part of Claudius, would, 
indeed, warrant his mistrust of the Queen ; but the text gives 
no hint of its existence, and he himself, far too cunning to 
reveal it to Polonius, remains content to assign the one cause 
given: a mother's natural and instinctive affection for her 
son. 

ATTEMPT AT REPENTANCE 

At the departure of Polonius, the King finds an oppor- 
tunity to reflect on his own state of mind and feelings. 

[312] 



scene in. REPENTANCE 

Though keeping up a good appearance, he is all the while 
troubled by conscious guilt. Like Macbeth he proves the 
fact that a criminal, even with the coveted prize attained, 
can never enjoy real happiness. His sense of guilt had once 
before impelled him to confess : 

"How smart a lash that speech doth 
Give my conscience! heavy burden !" 

Fear of bodily harm, as a result of Hamlet's knowledge of 
the murder, prompts him to regret rather than to repent his 
crime. The soliloquy which graphically depicts his attempt 
at repentance, has been a source of difficulty. Many com- 
mentators have wished to harmonize it with their own diverg- 
ing or even contradictory views concerning the justification 
of a sinner. Coleridge says: "the final 'all may be well' is 
remarkable ; the degree of merit attributed by the self -flat- 
tering soul to its own struggle, though baffled, and to the 
indefinite half promise, half command, to persevere in relig- 
ious duties." If this opinion seem acceptable to a Protestant 
Christian, it cannot be admitted by the Catholic reader. To 
him it must appear an evident misinterpretation, not only of 
the words, "all may be well," but also of the whole soliloquy. 
An American author, commenting on the passage accord- 
ing to his views of justification, affirms : 

"The words 'all may be well' with which he prologues 
his act of devotion, are very significant, as showing that 
his prayer is an attempt to make religion a substitute for 
duty. As often happens in real life, he betakes himself to 
a sentimental repentance, as absolving him from "doing 
works meet for repentance," for who has not seen men re- 
sorting to very emphatic exercises of religion, as virtually 
dispensing from the law of good and pious works. It is 
observable that the king's fit of devotion operates to ease 
him through his course of crime, instead of deterring him 
from it. Such are the subtle tricks men practice on them- 
selves to soothe the pangs of guilt without amendment of 

[313] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act hi. 

life. The king goes from his closet to plot further crimes! 
Thus his prayer is "like a spendehrift sigh that hurts by 
easing"; that is to say he endeavors to satisfy or appease 
his conscience with a falsetto cry of penitence. Strange 
it should be so, but so it is!" (Hudson's Hamlet, p. 35.) 

So indeed it is, if the soliloquy of Claudius be measured 
by the old Protestant notion of justification; but not, if, as 
we shall see, it be analyzed in the light of Catholic teaching. 

Still more in contradiction to the text is another author, 
whose prejudice against the old faith leads him to quote with 
hearty approval the opinion of Professor Werner. The Pro- 
fessor, however, as a Positivist, was necessarily opposed to all 
Christian teaching in regard to sin and justification. He 
says : ' * This is the religion which helps to make Claudius a 
palterer with his conscience. ' ' Such a remark will appear to 
every one who is acquainted with the Catholic doctrine of 
repentance and justification, not only wholly unwarranted by 
the text, but also in contradiction to the same. 

It seems strange, indeed, that non-Catholic critics, in 
commenting on this soliloquy, ignore for the most part the fun- 
damental principle that underlies all sane criticism: that a 
character, to be read correctly, must be studied, not subject- 
ively according to preconceived notions of the critic, but 
objectively as he is, with his motives, and purposes, and ac- 
tuating moral and religious principles. It is clear that no 
critic's subjective view of Claudius can be correct, unless it 
be conformed to the objective truth or reality of the charac- 
ter as revealed in the drama. A subjective view may, indeed, 
give us a picture of Claudius, but it will be a spurious Clau- 
dius of the critic's own imagination, and not Shakespeare's 
own creation. Multitudinous proofs, scattered through his 
works, show that the Poet was intimately acquainted with 
Catholic beliefs, and, therefore, having once created Claudius 
as a believing, but non-practicing Catholic, he consistently 

[314] 



scene in. REPENTANCE 

portrayed him actuated by the same beliefs in the attempted 
repentance ; hence, a judgment to be correct, should conform 
to this portrayal. 

The King, though theoretically a Catholic, lived practic- 
ally a pagan, and, therefore, it is unreasonable to charge the 
religion which he mentally accepts, but does not practice, 
with the vices which that same religion condemns, and the 
more so, since that religion holds as a fundamental doctrine 
the revealed truth that ''faith without works is dead." On 
the contrary, it is precisely because he fails to square his 
conduct with the moral and religious principles of the faith 
which he professes that he lives a criminal, the slave of vice, 
and an arrant hypocrite. 

The soliloquy, moreover, in itself confutes the opinion 
that Claudius palters with his conscience. If to palter means 
to trifle, or to equivocate, or to be insincere, the King must 
surely be acquitted of the charge. He is terribly in earnest 
and sincere. If this is clearly pictured to the mind of every 
Catholic, it may be less clear and even unintelligible to other 
readers from the fact that their view of repentance and jus- 
tification is radically different from the Catholic doctrine. 1 
It seems reasonable, however, that the soliloquy should be 
read in the light of the religious principles of Claudius ; for 
Shakespeare, while portraying the King, an astute hypocrite, 
whose life is at war with his creed, nevertheless, pictures him 
a theoretical adherent of the old faith. If thus read, we 
shall see briefly exposed in self-scrutiny of conscience the 
heart-searching of a guilty soul that exhibits more clearly in 
the concrete than would an abstract treatise, all the elements 
of the Catholic doctrine of repentance, as well as the suc- 
cessive stages of the conflict between a sinner's higher and 
lower nature, when attempting to burst asunder the 
captive bonds that hold him enslaved in sin. While the crime 

1 Vide Appendix. 

[315] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act in. 

of Claudius was securely locked in his own heart, he felt 
assured of safety and, wholly concerned in guarding the 
terrible secret, gave little thought to the heinousness of his 
offence ; but the betrayal of his secret prompts the thought 
of danger to himself and his ambition, and causes him to 
view his crime through the eyes of others. In the enormity 
of his offence, which stamps the primal curse of Cain upon 
him, he feels that his blood-stained soul "smells to Heaven" 
for vengeance : 

0, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven; 
It hath the primal eldest curse upon't, 
A brother's murder. 

The thought of his crime against the Creator affects him 
less than the fear of evils which it may bring upon himself ; 
in consequence, his inclination to genuine repentance is weak 
and springs from personal motives. If sorrow he has, it is 
prompted by a natural craving to assuage the torturing 
pangs of a remorseful conscience; hence, when his rational 
will commands him to pray to Heaven for aid, he finds it 
difficult and even repugnant, because, enslaved by sin and 
clinging to the fruits of his crime, he is devoid of that real 
supernatural sorrow, which is requisite for the remission of 
sin ; and conscious, therefore, of his improper disposition, he 
feels a diffidence in the efficacy of prayer, and vacillates be- 
tween despair and hope of pardon. 

"Pray can I not, 

Though inclination be as sharp as will; 
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent; 
And, like a man to double business bound, 
I stand in pause where I shall first begin, 
And both neglect.'' 

If the all-absorbing sense of his enormous guilt, which 
drives him almost to the verge of despair, deadens the call of 

[316] 



scene in. REPENTANCE 

conscience to prayer, he, nevertheless, labors to counteract 
it by mentally invoking the supernatural principles of reli- 
gion that so often and so emphatically proclaim God's in- 
finite mercy to repentant sinners : * 'If your sins be as scarlet, 
they shall be made as white as snow ; and if they be red as 
crimson, they shall be white as wool." 11 Such like thoughts 
strengthen his confidence in God's mercy, and on His assur- 
ance he feels that were his "cursed hand" steeped still more 
deeply in his brother's blood, yet Heaven's rain of mercy 
would wash to whiteness its crimson stains. What is mercy, 
after all, he further queries, save to greet the penitent with 
proffered pardon. If mercy mean kindness and favor to the 
sinner; if mercy mean the foregoing of justice in the exer- 
cise of clemency even to the greatest culprit : why should not 
he, though deserving the direst punishment, look up to 
Heaven with courage, and confide in the promises of the God 
of mercies. Has He not said: "I desire not the death of the 
wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way, and live." 12 

"What if this accursed hand 

Were thicker than itself with brother's blood, 
Is there not enough rain in the sweet Heavens 
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy 
But to confront the visage of offence?" 

Confident of God's mercy, Claudius now thinks of invok- 
ing it by means of prayer. Is not, he affirms, the purpose of 
prayer to obtain Divine aid either to guard against falling 
into sin, or, having fallen, to be uplifted and pardoned? His 
religion teaches him that mercy is shown only to the penitent 
sinner whose compunction of heart is grounded on a super- 
natural motive, and that such repentance requiring the aid 
of God, is ordinarily obtained by prayer. Prayer, however, 



11 Isaias, 1, 18. 

12 Ezech. 33, 11. 



[317] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act hi. 

being in itself an act of Divine worship whereby we acknow- 
ledge the supremacy of the Creator, manifest our belief in His 
Divine Revelation, and confide in His promises, is a super- 
natural human act that absolutely needs Divine assistance. 

Such prayer, when efficacious, obtains for the sinner a 
change of heart and prompts his will, once averted from good 
and adhering to evil, now really to wish to return to God; 
and this change of will is the preliminary step necessary in 
every conversion, in order to merit the approval of Divine 
Justice. "If thou wilt be converted, I will convert thee." 13 
Confidence in the power of prayer is not weakened in Clau- 
dius even by the consciousness of his unnatural crime ; for he 
knows that the state of grace, or sinlessness is not a condi- 
tion demanded for success in prayer: as the publican was 
heard, and again the penitent thief on the cross, so every 
sinner will be heard, if he pray as he ought. Furthermore, 
the thought that his ' ' sin is past ; ' ' that the murder done can 
not be undone; and that he heartily detests it, urges him 
the more "to look up" to Heaven in suppliant prayer. 

"And what's in prayer, but this twofold force, 
To be forestalled ere we come to fall, 
Or pardoned, being down? Then I'll look up; 
My fault is past." 

His resolve to appeal to the throne of mercy naturally 
gives birth to the thought of the form in which he shall 
clothe his prayer. Its form seems suggested by the petition 
of the Lord's Prayer, "forgive us our trespasses," but with 
the words on his lips, comes a disturbing truth that had 
hitherto escaped his thoughts. How can he pray for pardon 
as long as he retains the fruit of his crime? His religion 
teaches him that Divine Justice can not forgive a crime to 
which the sinner still adheres ; that true contrition on which 

*■* Jer. 15, 19. 

[318] 



scene in. REPENTANCE 

depends forgiveness, requires, not only sorrow for the crime, 
but also the renouncing of the unrighteous effects for which 
the murder was committed. Before he can really hope for 
pardon, he must, therefore, have a sincere and firm resolve 
to make restitution by the abandonment of his criminal 
ambition, by the yielding up the crown, and the sundering 
of his unholy alliance with the Queen. 

This obligation, all-essential to the true spirit of repent- 
ance, appalls him for the moment, and his thoughts turn to 
the outer world, where wholly different is the sway of human 
justice. He knows well the corruptions of civil life, in whose 
courts covetous gold too often blinds justice, and stifles the 
voice of law ; where culprits by sharing their ill-gotten prize, 
often escape the avenging hand of retribution. All this is so 
with human justice ; but not so in the court above. There, 
sits enthroned an Omniscient Judge at Whose bar of justice 
"there is no shuffling," no indirect methods, no shifting 
ground, no artifice or trickery, no evasion nor prevarication, 
no tranquil alliance on the "blood of the Lamb," as all-suffi- 
cient without change of life and the undoing of the injustice 
done. His judgments incorruptible and unerring, are irrevo- 
cable and beyond appeal. In His presence, the culprit stands 
with his naked crimes, the accuser and the accused, with 
conscience his sole defence, and truth and justice his sole 
advocates. 

"But, 0, what form of prayer 

Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder f 
That cannot be; since I am still possessed 
Of those effects for which I did the murder, 
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen. 
May one be pardoned and retain the offence? 
In the corrupted currents of this world 
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice; 
And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself 
Buys out the law; but 'tis not so above; 

[ 319 ] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act in. 

There is no shuffling, — there the action lies 
In his true nature; and we ourselves compelled, 
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, 
To give in evidence." 

Conscious that his strong repugnance to right the wrongs 
which he has done, must make his efforts at repentance futile, 
the King, nevertheless, in remorse of conscience, which, is 
roused to greater keenness by the thought of an Omniscient 
God and His unerring justice, feels an urgent impulse to 
make a trial before abandoning all hope. In the attempt, 
a contest arises between his higher and lower nature, in 
which the former demands the surrender of both crown and 
queen, and the latter rebels at the very thought. Distracted 
by this distressing conflict of his rational soul with the sinful 
passions of his animal nature, the unhappy man gives audible 
expression to his "wretched state," confesses the sinful 
blackness of his heart, and feels that in struggling to escape 
the foul slough of sin, he only mires himself the more. 
In his utter helplessness, however, he thinks of Heaven's aid ; 
without it, he feels he can not throw off the bonds of sin. 
If he could only bow his "stubborn knees" in supplication, 
"all may be well;" the grace of God all powerful is prom- 
ised to the prayerful man; and grace can transform the 
greatest sinner by softening his stony heart like wax, and 
endowing his weak will with the supernal strength of Chris- 
tian fortitude. He will, therefore, "make assay." Prayer is 
his only hope, and invoking the aid of the ministering spirits 
of Heaven, he kneels to God in suppliant prayer. 

"What then? what rests? 

Try what repentance can? what can it not? 
Yet what can it when one cannot repent? 
wretched state! bosom black as death! 
limed soul, that struggling to be free 
Art more engaged! Help angels! Make assay! 

[320] 



scene in. REPENTANCE 

Bow, stubborn knees; and, herewith strings of steel, 
Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe! 
All may be well. (Retires and kneels.) 

The progressive struggle between the King's worse and 
better self had reached its culmination. First, the gnawing 
worm of conscience having roused him to the sense of his 
heinous crime, remorse had urged him to repentance; the 
thought of repentance recalled the obligation of restitution as 
an absolute condition of pardon, and this obligation was con- 
fronted by a rebellious repugnance; with the hope of con- 
quering it, his nobler self resolved to invoke by prayer Divine 
assistance as the only means of endowing his will with, 
strength to subdue the sinful resistance of his baser nature. 
As soon, however as he actually engages in prayer, he dis- 
covers his sad plight. 

(King rising from prayer) 

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below; 

Words without thoughts never to Heaven go. 14 

Long unaccustomed to prayer, he finds an insuperable 
difficulty in concentrating his mind on God. If his hollow 
words fly up to Heaven, his thoughts remain enchained to 
earth. Moreover, conscious that he is devoid of true con- 
trition ; that he is only half -repentant and only half -desirous 
of conversion, he feels ill disposed for pardon, and without 
the inspiration of firm hope, he lacks earnestness and fervor, 
and, in consequence, his listless, heartless words are mean- 
ingless and mechanical. The soul of the wretched man 
weakly fluttering in attempted flight, is held captive by the 
bonds of sin, the criminal passions of his earthly coarser na- 
ture. At heart he would repent, and yet retain the crown; 

1 * In the First Quarto this couplet reads : 

"My words fly up, my sins remain below: 
No King on earth is safe if God's his foe". 

[321] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

at heart his love of ambition outweighs the love of God; at 
heart he would storm Heaven's gates of mercy, yet retain 
affections that bind him a slave to earth. Hence he feels that 
his prayer is a mockery in presence of an all-seeing God, 
Who searches human hearts, and Whose words, perhaps, re- 
echo in his ears: " this people honoreth me with their lips, 
but their hearts are far away." 15 He rises from his half- 
hearted attempt at prayer, feeling some disappointment, but 
little disgust with himself. Perhaps like many a sinner, he 
calms his disturbed conscience with the vague notion of fu- 
ture conversion. Perhaps presuming on God's continued 
mercies, he natters himself that under more favorable condi- 
tions, he will in after years, be better disposed to turn to 
Heaven in sincere contrition, and thus buoyed up by delusive 
hope, he exclaims, all may yet be well ! 

THE KING AT PRAYER 

On the way to his mother, Hamlet unexpectedly comes 
upon Claudius engaged in prayer. There is marked progress 
in the role of the King, as well as in the play; for Hamlet 
has forced him by means of the interlude to make for the 
first time a verbal confession of his crime. "There is" says 
Werder "depth and power of invention here which has not 
the like. The course of the play, though appearing to drag, 
is chased by the storm of God, of Heaven, and of Hell, 
thundering together." 

Hamlet's first feeling is astonishment at the wily hypo- 
crite's attempt to ease his guilty soul; but astonishment 
quickly yields to other sentiments. In mind aflame with 
hatred of the crafty criminal, he is urged by an almost over- 
powering passionate impulse to strike the avenging blow. 
Never again may he have such an opportunity. 

15 Matt. 15, 8. 

[322] 



scene in. THE KING AT PRAYER 

With feelings of abhorrence and of murderous revenge,, 
his glistening eyes are fixed upon the self -convicted fratricide 
kneeling before him, alone, unarmed, and even unconscious 
of his presence ; and when in the fierce impulse of his animal 
nature aglow with a fiery thirst "to drink hot blood," the 
man is ready to rush upon him with gleaming sword flashing 
from its scabbard, he is suddenly checked, and the uplifted 
sword is stayed, not by fear, not by cowardice, not by irreso- 
lution of will, but because the superman ever active in an ener- 
getic mind grasps instantly the meaning of yielding in weak- 
ness to blind, irrational impulse. Reason cries aloud against 
it ; and sane judgment dictates that the slaughter of Claudius 
at the present juncture, far from avenging the murder, would 
not only mar his design of a just and complete "revenge," 
but even make it forever impossible. 

He is equal to the emergency, the superman at once as- 
sumes command, and with his usual characteristic strength 
of will bids the wild voices of tumultuous passions to be 
silent, and his rebellious lower nature to bide due time for 
complete "revenge." The fierce conflict of the man against 
the superman is not, however, so readily allayed. The former 
in the murderous impulse of raging passions continues a 
fierce assault against the prudent judgment of the latter, 
until in the fear of losing self-control, he invokes the powers 
of his higher nature, or of the superman, in order that, by his 
iron will and force of reason, he may conjure up motives 
that may effectually stem the blind onslaught of unreason- 
ing passions of the man, or lower animal nature. 

The first reason is prompted by the sense of commuta- 
tive justice, which demands measure for measure. The idea 
of slaying the King in penitential prayer, and thereby send- 
ing his soul to heaven, instantly recalls by contrast the cruel 
mode of his father's death. He was sent without prepara- 

[ 323 ] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

tion, "gross" in sin and "full of bread" 18 to his dread ac- 
count. The thought recalls the wail of his father's spirit. 
The ghost had piteously complained that he was cut off in the 
blossoms of his sins, and sent to his account with all his 
imperfections on his head ; that in refined cruelty, his brother 
had denied him the last sacraments of holy Church, which 
are always offered even to the most abject criminal. 

Hamlet 's expressed ignorance of how his father's "audit 
stands," is not, as some imagine, indicative of any doubt 
whether he be among the saved or lost. The ghost has posi- 
tively settled this point, by assuring him that he is doomed 
for a certain time to purgatorial fires, till the foul crimes of 
earth are burnt and purged away. He is, therefore, assuredly 
among the saved. Yet, Hamlet has reason to doubt how his 
father's "audit stands;" for none save heaven can know 
how long a term Divine Justice has assigned for purgation. 

Hamlet, however, as an educated Catholic, can, from ' { cir- 
cumstances and course of thought, ' ' divine that the term of the 
ghost's suffering is far from short. He is well aware that 
each offense against the moral law, whether great or small 
entails, even after the guilt has been remitted, a temporal 
penalty to be undergone either in the present life or in the 
world to come. On earth these penalties can be cancelled by 
sacramental grace and good works, which are efficacious 
by the merits of the Savior. With this in mind, it is clear, 
why the ghost expresses grief that he was suddenly cut off 
"in the blossoms of his sins," and thus deprived of an oppor- 
tunity to cancel his debt to Divine Justice; and again, why 
above all, he is aggrieved at having been robbed of the sacra- 

16 The words, "full of bread" seem suggested by a passage in Ezechiel, 16, 46. 
— "Behold, this was the iniquity of Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and 
abundance, and idleness". That is, these were the steps by which the 
Sodomites came to fall into those abominations for which they were de- 
stroyed. For pride, gluttony, and idleness are the high road to all kinds 
of lust. 

[324] 



scene in. COMMENSURATE PUNISHMENT 

ments, which as sacred rites of Divine institution are most 
effective in remitting to a great extent the temporal punish- 
ment due to sin. Hamlet, therefore, from his own knowledge 
of Catholic doctrine and from the revelation of his father's 
ghost, can justly infer that " 'tis heavy with him," both 
as to the time of purgation and the severity of his sufferings. 
This thought had all along engendered anguish of mind, 
and stirred his fond heart to sentiments of pity ; but now it 
prompts him to compare the sad fate of the victim with the 
happy future of the murderer, should he slay him in "the 
purging of his soul." The striking contrast of their fates, 
vividly exposing the injustice of his contemplated act, causes 
a reaction, and in a terrible revulsion of feeling, he deter- 
mines in exasperation to await a future opportunity, when 
he can strike in a genuine and just "revenge." 

A MORE COMMENSURATE PUNISHMENT 

If the reflection that to slay Claudius in prayerful con- 
trition, and perhaps send his soul to heaven, would be an 
inadequate ' ' revenge, ' ' and even an injustice to the memory 
of his suffering father, had caused Hamlet to sheathe his 
sword, it also prompted him to think of a punishment more 
commensurate with the crime. The very sight of the hated 
hypocrite at prayer, the thought of the horrid nature of his 
cold-blooded murder, and the memory of the terrible suffer- 
ings, which on the testimony of the ghost, he had brought 
upon his father in the spirit world ; all fan the anger of the 
man into a fury akin to madness, and fill his mind with the 
wildest thoughts of unrestrained excess. His terrible words 
are the first natural impromptu imprecations of a filial son, 
who for the first time is certain that the usurper before him 
is the actual murderer of his father. This horrid, bitter 
certainty almost transforms the man for the moment into a 

[325] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

demon stirred by diabolical hatred. So violent has now be- 
come the fury of his surging passions, and so powerful the 
thirsting impulse to revenge, which assail the superman that, 
notwithstanding his prudent judgment, firm resolve, and 
strength of unyielding will in resistance, he fears he may lose 
control, and in consequence, in an anxiety to lull the frenzied 
insurrection of angry passions, he instinctively grasps the 
first motive suggested by the very hatred of the King him- 
self. A criminal, like Claudius, he presumes will continue in 
his course of crime until overtaken by avenging justice ; and 
this thought suggests to the man a gruesome possibility of 
' ' revenge ; " he shall strike the crafty villain, not when ' ' fit and 
seasoned for heaven, ' ' but ' ' when he is drunk asleep, or in his 
rage, or at gaming, swearing, or about some act that has no 
relish of salvation in it. Then shall he trip him, that his 
heels may kick at heaven, and that his soul may be as damned 
and black as hell, whereto it goes. ' ' 

His frightful words portray a fiendish suggestion which, 
though vividly pictured, is not deliberately embraced ; for the 
superman still swayed by conscience, dominates the man and 
by his forceful energy of will maintains control. Hence, the 
thoughts expressed are not the real sentiments of Hamlet; 
they are in contradiction to his well-known principles, to his 
general deportment, and in fact to his whole character, and 
flow, not from the moral sense and rational nature of the 
superman, but are simply the expression of the wild rage of 
anger and of hatred, which agitate the irascible man of his 
lower and animal nature. In fine, mindful of his mother's 
summons, he departs with the thought that the King's prayer 
but prolongs his sickly, or remorseful days. 

It is noteworthy that when uttering those terrible words, 
Hamlet had no anticipation of the catastrophe, nor premoni- 
tion of the actual result. If in ignorance of the future, he 

[326] 



scene in. THE REAL REASON 

speaks with a prophetic spirit, it is solely because the Poet 
has designed to foreshadow in one of his hero's most angry 
moods, the nature of the punishment, which by decree of 
divine justice shall ultimately overtake the criminal. His 
purpose in fulfilling the words of Hamlet, is to show how he 
himself understands the "revenge," and how he wishes us to 
view it. His judgment, as well as his own idea of justice, he 
would impress upon us, and to this effect he fashions and 
builds up the Play. 

THE REAL REASON 

In the foregoing soliloquy, there is no indication of the 
real motive, which prompted Hamlet to sheathe the sword. 
His purpose was to quell the insurrection of his lower against 
his higher nature; and since for this, an appeal to the true 
cause of his inaction would have been, not only ineffectual, 
but even aggravating, he ignores it for the moment, and 
summons to his aid other motives, which by their very nature 
were apt to stay the onslaught of the man of his lower 
nature, riotous for revenge. 

He should, say certain critics, have despatched the mur- 
derer at this one and only opportunity offered him. They 
affirm that the uplifted sword is not stayed for the reasons 
assigned, which after all are only artful excuses to gratify 
his wonted vacillation. As formerly, conscientious scruples 
concerning his uncle 's guilt, served as subterfuges for habit- 
ual delay, so now, they say, after these doubts have been 
removed by absolute certainty, he again seeks delay, and im- 
poses on himself by subtle theorizing on the duty of "re- 
venge." We have already shown, however, that these scru- 
ples were not mere excuses, but actual and rational doubts 
of a conscientious Christian whose religious and moral 
principles forbade him to proceed in so grave a matter as 

[327] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act in. 

the slaying of his uncle, until he had laid aside all doubt of 
guilt. 17 

Again, they say, Hamlet does not strike the King, be- 
cause he can act only under sudden impulse, as is well exhi- 
bited in the slaying of Polonius. Why, then, we ask, does he 
not despatch Claudius in the present instance? Never was 
he under a more sudden and stronger impulse to action. 
Shakespeare seems to have feared this misinterpretation, and, 
in consequence, has given us its refutation by picturing his 
hero in a supremely intense excitement at the very moment that 
he catches sight of Claudius. ' ' Hell itself, ' ' he says, ' * breath- 
es out contagion to this world ; now could I drink hot blood, 
and do such bitter business as the day would quake to look 
on." How powerful, therefore, must have been the motive 
which induced a most remarkable self-control, and caused 
him in iron energy of will to suspend the fatal stroke ? Ham- 
let, surely, lacks not force of will, but wilfulness. His will is 
strictly subject to reason and to conscience, as designed by 
the Author of our nature, and, therefore, yields when in con- 
flict with them ; but when free from rational restraint, his vo- 
lition seems all will. "We are too apt to estimate men's 
force of will," says Hudson, "by what they do, and not by 
what they do not do; yet the latter often demands greater 
strength of will than the former." This fact is well illus- 
trated in the peculiar situations of the hero, wherein his will 
enjoys its proper exercise in the recurring conflicts between 
his higher and lower nature. To restore harmony of will and 
reason is the greatest achievement of human power. The 
highest possible exercise of will is in renouncing wilfulness 
and abiding by the law instead, so that, paradoxical as it may 
seem, he may be said to have most force of will who shows 
no wilfulness at all. If Hamlet, therefore, fails to strike 

17 Vide, part I, c. IX. 

[328] 



scene in. THE REAL REASON 

the King at prayer, it is from a self-restraint commanded by 
prudent judgment, and such restraint is but another name 
for the highest power of will. 

This restraint was prompted by his sense of a twofold 
duty : the one to punish the fratricide and usurper, and the 
other, not to do so until he had at hand such tangible proofs 
for the citizens of Denmark as would convince them, not 
only of his uncle 's crime, but also of the justice of the punish- 
ment. This was Hamlet's sense of duty. It was the mighty 
power which checked the uplifted avenging sword from fall- 
ing upon the kneeling monarch. Had it fallen, it would in the 
stricken King, have murdered all possible proofs of his 
secret crime, and deferred his just and moral punishment till 
the day of universal doom. In the seemingly insuperable diffi- 
culties of the task lies the terror of the tragedy, its enigma- 
tical horror, and its inexorable misery. 



[329] 



SCENE FOURTH 

A SECRET INTERVIEW 

The fourth scene, save a few introductory remarks of 
Polonius, is wholly concerned with Hamlet and his mother. 
Full of surprises, of striking situations, of high moral senti- 
ment, and of beautiful poetic diction, it is admired as one of 
the Poet's masterpieces. The Queen has summoned her son 
in accordance with the command of Claudius, who, highly 
incensed at Hamlet's offensive conduct at the Play, insists 
that she rebuke him, and stay further outbursts of his wil- 
fulness. As her well-known motherly love for Hamlet might 
cause her to give an incomplete and prejudiced account of 
the interview, Polonius with the King's connivance resorts 
to his usual diplomacy of espionage. His real purpose, 
though not expressed, appears to be the restoration of his 
injured reputation; for, still clinging to his fond theory of 
Hamlet 's madness, he hopes in the secret interview to obtain 
proofs which will at length force Claudius to admit the cor- 
rectness of his judgment. He lays special stress on the 
King's injunction that Gertrude berate her son severely. If 
Claudius had tolerated his pranks in the past, it was because 
she had screened him ; but now, in high offense, he is ill-dis- 
posed to bear them longer. The Queen promises Polonius 
to chide her son severely, and, as she hears him calling from 
without — ''Mother, Mother!" she instantly commands the 
old minister to withdraw. 

That Hamlet's conduct in the present scene appears to 
certain minds, undutiful, harsh, and even bordering on 
savagery, is due, no doubt, to their forgetfulness of his cir- 

[330] 



scene iv. A SECRET INTERVIEW 

cumstances and of the new relations which have sprung up 
between himself and his mother. If, however, we recall his 
filial love, which, intensified supremely by the lofty idealiza- 
tion of his mother's character, had been lacerated by her 
shameful conduct ; if we consider his own nature, so highly 
sensitive to moral good and evil that, enamored of the one 
and abhorrent of the other, he feels a revulsion of soul at the 
disgraceful state of one so near and dear to him; if we re- 
flect upon his own understanding of his duty of " revenge, " 
a duty, which comprises not only the punishment of the 
usurper, by depriving him of life, crown, and Queen, but, 
moreover, the awakening of his mother's soul to a sense of 
her shameful guilt, in order to restore her to her former vir- 
tuous self : it seems evident that his conduct, far from being 
undutiful and harsh, is, on the contrary, clearly prompted 
by his strong filial love for an idol, which, though basely 
shattered, he is anxious to upgather, and, by induing it anew 
with his own esteem of virtue and of honor, to restore it to 
its lost dignity and splendor. Hence, his supreme filial love 
and sense of duty makes him the physician of her soul, — makes 
him apply the one sole remedy which, however painful, can 
alone revive her from a moribund state, and save her from a 
disgraceful moral death. 

The scene is not only essential to the play, but, more- 
over, indispensable to Hamlet. As he had, by means of the 
interlude, disclosed to Claudius his twofold secret, the one 
of his feigned madness, the other of his knowledge of the 
murder, he perceives that his former method now worthless, 
must be superseded by some new device. But first of all, 
after his unmasking of the King, he must discover the extent 
of his mother's innocence or guilt, and expose to her his own 
position towards herself and the criminal. 

[331] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 



A RASH INTRUDER 



Polonius had scarcely time to conceal himself, before 
Hamlet enters upon the scene in an intense excitement, which 
is reflected in his burning looks and passionate words and 
action. Gertrude had nerved herself to rebuke her wayward 
son in terms most vigorous, but in surprise she is on the 
instant placed upon the defensive; for her son boldly and 
terribly direct, proceeds at once to the moral onslaught. His 
mother, he charges, has grievously sinned against his father, 
and now speaks with "a wicked tongue." In painful sur- 
prise at his accusing words, and in fear of his threatening 
anger, she, supposing him demented, imagines that he does 
not recognize her. Quick is his scathing reply, in which 
he swears by the holy rood, or crucifix that he knows her 
too well, the wife of his father's brother, and, in tones full 
of loathing and disgust, he affirms, " would it were not so!" 
But his next words, "you are my mother," are uttered in 
slow emphasis full of burning scorn, and all alive with feel- 
ings of regret, disdain, and overpowering shame. They fall 
like dagger's strokes, and, under their rankling wounds, she 
is roused to anger, and rises to depart. Stayed in her at- 
tempt, however, and forced back, she cowers beneath his 
wrathful mien, and hears in fear his fierce command, not to 
budge till he shall have unveiled to her gaze as in a mirror, 
the blackness of her heart and the hideousness of her sin- 
stricken soul. 

To appreciate Hamlet's position, it is necessary to recall 
the fact that the scene occurs within the hour after the inter- 
lude at which Claudius had betrayed his guilt ; that, already 
on his way for the interview with his mother, he had paused, 
and excited in a brief monologue his fierce feelings of re- 
venge ; that the thought of her connivance at the crime had so 
roused his irascible nature to sentiments of rage and fury 

[332] 



scene iv. A RASH INTRUDER 

as actually to inflame him with the cruel, murderous, spirit 
of a Nero ; and that this spirit became still more violent and 
riotous for blood, when by chance he beheld the criminal 
at prayer. 

While in this state of mind he meets his mother a few 
moments later. Though restraining with difficulty his feel- 
ings of resentment, and firmly resolving to be cruel, but not 
unnatural, to speak daggers, but to use none, his anger is 
further heightened, when his mother, in irritation at his 
words, would break off the private interview, and so frustrate 
his purpose of sifting her guilty soul. His fire-flashing eye, 
his livid face, and commanding words alive with rage, cause 
her to quail before his fury. Seized with terror and fearing 
bodily harm and even murder, she cries aloud for aid. 

Unfortunately, Polonius takes up the cry, and surprises 
Hamlet by the amazing fact that he is spied upon again. 
How can he imagine that the old chancellor lies concealed at 
that time of night behind the tapestry of the Queen's private 
apartment? That moving form can be none other than the 
King's. There within his reach, again detected in an act of 
treachery, is the horrid criminal and usurper, the foul mur- 
derer of his father, and the seducer of his mother. His hated 
presence together with these thoughts, suddenly conjure up 
all his sense of wrongs and shame, rack his frame to its in- 
most depths, and so fire his wrath to uncontrolled rage and 
consuming fury, that swept away beyond himself, forgetful 
of his better judgment, unmindful of his conscientious duty 
of a moral revenge, he instantaneously as a flash draws the 
deadly weapon, and gives the fatal stroke. 

Hamlet turns to his victim behind the arras, and lifting 
the tapestry, discovers in surprise and amazement the corpse 
of Polonius. All intent upon the urgent business with his 
mother, he is too engrossed at the present moment to pro- 

[333] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act in. 

nounce but a brief epitaph upon the "wretched, rash, intrud- 
ing fool, ' ' whose shallow diplomacy says Horn, brought him 
to a sorry end : 

"The death of Polonius forms a tragic epigram, the 
deepest, perhaps, which a poet ever conceived. One would 
willingly wish the half -honest, half -wise, witty fool of a 
man to live in his happy and ornamental fashion, but he 
is suddenly hurried off, so entirely without preparation, as 
it were in the intoxication of his clumsy intrigue, caught 
in the pitiful attitude of an eavesdropper, which he had 
just volunteered to take, in order to win a word of praise 
from a king rich only in phrases/ ' 

THUNDERS IN THE INDEX 

After that deadly stroke, Hamlet turns his scornful 
glance upon the silent partner in this latest espying treachery. 
Now sure that he is free from listeners, he seizes instantly the 
opportunity to force his mother to confess by word or action, 
whether she in any way conspired to the murder of his father. 
Trembling in rage, with naked, bloody sword in hand, he 
stands before her, peering into her eyes, and ready to scan 
every passing look and move as he utters in changed tones 
the appalling charge : ' ' Kill a king, and marry with his broth- 
er. ' ' Had she quaked or quailed at those terrible words so un- 
expectedly hurled against her, and so awful in their revela- 
tion ; had she winced, and shrunk back unnerved and cowering 
beneath his questioning and torturing gaze; had she at that 
crushing charge, by telltale eye, affrighted countenance, and 
disconcerted action, in any manner betrayed her guilt like 
Claudius, we dread to surmise the horrible result. Unflinch- 
ing, she stood that infallible test : only surprise and innocence 
seemed written on her face. 

Critics are much divided between Gertrude's guilt and 
innocence. Hamlet, assured by the ghost of her infidelity to 
his father, seems, moreover, to doubt all along whether she was 

[334] 



scene iv. THUNDERS IN THE INDEX 

an accomplice in the blacker crime. On this point the First 
and Second Quartos differ widely. In the former, which fol- 
lows closely the legend of Amleth, she emphatically affirms her 
innocence in the words: 

"But as I have a soul, I swear by heaven, 
I never knew of this most horrid murder," 

and after the present scene she not only becomes an active 
partisan of Hamlet, but also promises her aid in his purpose 
of revenge: 

"Hamlet, I vow by that same Majesty 
That knows our thoughts, and looks into our hearts, 
I will conceal, consent, and do my best, 
What stratagem soe'er thou shalt devise." 

In the Second Quarto, however, as well as in our modern 
text, the extent of the Queen 's guilt is left vague and doubtful : 
she vacillates to the end between Claudius and her son. It 
may be noted that the ghost, while charging the murder to the 
King, does not affirm the Queen's innocence, but commands 
that she be left to the judgment of heaven ; that nowhere does 
the murderer indicate his sister-in-law's collusion, nor even 
insinuate her knowledge of the crime ; that, unlike Claudius, 
she betrays neither at the interlude, nor in the present scene 
any consciousness of guilt. Had she connived at the murder, 
then, because of her most surprising self-command, she must 
be rated one of the strongest characters of the play ; whereas, 
all other incidents prove her the weakest. 

Though the Queen is greatly distressed at the sight of the 
corpse and at her son 's continued excitement, Hamlet proceeds 
with burning eloquence in his purpose of awakening her by 
words of reproof and indignation to a sense of her shameful 
conduct and to the infamy of her present state. If habitual 
sinning has not deadened her moral sense of evil, and choked 
the voice of conscience, he yet hopes to excite in her the better 

[335] 



THE RIDDLES OP HAMLET actiii. 

feelings of the woman, and to re-enkindle in her heart a true 
mother's love. Her query, in remonstrance, is in keeping 
with her character ; without clear and distinct notions of moral 
responsibilities, she seems not to divine the true cause of her 
son's anger and indignation. Before her mind is Hamlet's 
implied charge of murder against Claudius ; but she attempts 
no refutation. Her ignorance of her son's secret information, 
leads her, perhaps, to imagine that indifference to her former 
husband's death, as indicated by her over-hasty marriage, as 
well as by her neglect to press for an explanation of his sudden 
taking off, which by reason of its gruesome and mysterious 
manner excited grave suspicion, is the cause of Hamlet's pres- 
ent angry reprehension. If so, severe is the shock of her 
awakening, as in poignant, scathing terms, he commands her 
to leave off wringing her hands. If her heart be made of 
penetrable stuff, if it be not brazened by damned custom 
against conscience and the sense of shame, he shall make her 
look therein, and see how horrid and black it shows. 

In self-defense the irritated mother questions what she 
has done that he dare reproach her in terms so noisy and so 
rude. The question shows her impervious to a sense of guilt 
and shame, and only irritates her son the more. He proceeds 
to charge her with conduct that blights the beauty and the 
modest blush of chastity, confounds vice and virtue, wilts the 
rose on the brow of pure love, and sets a blister there. 18 

•Gertrude as already shown was only a nominal or non- 
practicing Catholic. Though outwardly professing the Chris- 
tian religion of the elder Hamlet and her son, she cared little 
for its principles and moral precepts. Still unweaned from the 
old religion of Odin, which was yet common to many of her 
subjects, she followed in private life the more indulgent cus- 
toms of the pagan Norsemen. Hence her conduct was specially 

18 An allusion to an old time custom of branding harlots on the forehead. 

[336] 



scene iv. THUNDERS IN THE INDEX 

offensive to her son. In what this offence particularly lay, 
non-Catholic critics usually fail to grasp, because they disre- 
gard the difference between modern lax notions of matrimony, 
which have flowed from the doctrines of the "Reformers," 
and those of the Church, which now as in Hamlet's day holds 
marriage to be a sacred and sacramental contract. 

His grief, shame, and indignation arose not only from 
his mother's previous perfidy to his father, but more from 
her sinful and incestuous union in a pretended marriage with 
his uncle. 19 He felt assured that her pagan laxity of morals, 
while disgracing him, would also be a scandal to the public 
eye, and would, moreover, sanction license in life at court. 
As a Catholic he knew that matrimony is not a mere natural 
contract, but over and above a sacred rite, a holy sacrament of 
grace instituted by the Savior Himself; and, therefore, he 
charges his mother with having perjured her vows of i ' sweet 
religion," and made them an empty parody of words. Her 
lawless and incestuous union has desecrated a holy sacrament, 
has sacrilegiously plucked from the sacred contract its life- 
giving principle, its very soul, and left it a lifeless body, sub- 
ject to the natural law of decay. His abhorrence of her crime 
induces a high strain of passion, and his fervid mind rises in 
denunciation to a noble and poetic climax: All nature is 
affected by her sin; heaven glows with the blush of indigna- 
tion ; earth loathes it, and seems stricken with grief and horror, 
as if doomsday were at hand. The noble lines vividly suggest 
Milton's description of the immediate consequences of the 
first sin: 

" Earth trembled from her entrails, as again 
In pangs, and Nature gave a second groan, 
Sky lowr'd, and mutt 'ring thunder, some sad drops 
Wept at completing of the mortal sin 
Original." (Book IX.) 

18 Vide, part I, Chap. VII, p. 49. 

[337] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

Though anxious and in fear from her son's towering 
passion and angry words, Gertrude, who is characteristically 
obtuse in matters of morals and religion, still holds out against 
her son's accusation, and, hiding behind his supposed ignor- 
ance of her guilt, asks in assumed innocence the cause of his 
angry denunciation: 

"Ay me, what act, 
That roars so loud and thunders in the index!" 

A CONTRAST 

Stirred by her obstinacy and pretended ignorance, Ham- 
let grows more indignant, and proceeds to particulars. His 
action accompanying the words, "Look here, upon this pic- 
ture, and on this," has been diversely described. Some an- 
notators suppose that the pictures are seen by the mind's eye 
only ; others, that Hamlet wears a miniature of his father, and 
the Queen one of the present King. The common practice of 
the stage, however, since the Restoration, affirms Davies, has 
been for Hamlet to draw two miniatures or medallions from 
his pocket. But such action seems objectionable; since it is 
most improbable that the Prince carried about with him a pic- 
ture of the hated criminal. Again, it is thought that from the 
time of the original performance, two royal portraits at half 
length were hung in the Queen's closet, as is shown in the illus- 
trated frontispiece of Rowe's edition of Hamlet of 1709. 
Another opinion, the most common and the most probable, is 
that Hamlet draws a miniature of his father from his pocket, 
and then turns to point to a picture of Claudius exposed upon 
the wall. 

Inspired by filial affection, Hamlet proceeds in glowing 
hyperbole to picture his father as a paragon, on whom Jup- 
iter, supreme in intellect; Apollo, in beauty; Mars, in valor; 
and Mercury, in swiftness and despatch, had each "set his 

[338] 



scene iv. A CONTRAST 

seal, ' ' in order ' ' to give the world assurance of a man. ' ' From 
this hyperion, he turns to the picture of the satyr, who ''like 
a mildewed ear has blasted his wholesome brother." 20 

The contrast heightens his indignation, and in sentiments 
of inexpressible disgust, he queries how she could have left 
this ''fair mountain" of perfection, "to batten" on a quaggy 
moorland. Hers is not the impulsive, blinding love of youth ; 
for at her stage of life, love waits upon the judgment. Her 
reason must be wholly "apoplexed;" even the senseless and 
insane retain, unlike to her, some power of choice. Inspired 
by the Christian doctrine that fallen angels, or evil spirits in 
their hatred of God, tempt mortals to rebellion against the 
Creator and his moral laws, he demands "what devil" has 
hoodwinked and defrauded her of all feeling, save one sickly 
passion, and left her witlessly "to mope" in delusion. Where 
is her blush of shame? If "rebellious hell" can thus mutiny 
in a matron's heart, and make reason subservient to lustful 
passion, then youth can find no safety, unless it be aflame 
with the sense of moral beauty, and glow with an enthusiastic 
and passionate love of virtue. 

The foregoing portraits of the elder Hamlet and of Claud- 
ius, contain, it is reasonable to suppose, some elements of ex- 
aggeration. The Prince 's high eulogium of his father, as well 
as his low debasement of his uncle, are both tinted by opposing 
passions: the one by extreme love, and the other by extreme 
hate. To be powerfully and oppositely swayed by love and 
hatred is a characteristic of human nature ; when love domin- 
ates the heart, its kindly eye sees the virtues of the object be- 
loved loom bright in the sheen of white light, which obscures 
vice by its shadows; when hatred, on the contrary, rages in 
the heart, its hostile eye, blind to the good, sees only what is 

20 An evident allusion to Pharao's dream: "Seven ears of corn came up upon 
one stalk full and fair; then seven other ears sprung up thin and blasted, 
and devoured all the beauty of the former". Gen. 41, 6. 

[339] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

hateful, and in magnified proportions. Hamlet's sire was no 
doubt a grand and lofty character, worthy of high respect and 
filial love ; otherwise the supreme affection and veneration for 
the father remain unintelligible in the son, who himself 
among men was in moral and intellectual nature a giant among 
pigmies, and who, in his esteem and love of the good and the 
true, is everywhere no less resplendent than in his hatred of 
evil, of falsehood, and of moral ugliness. On the other hand, 
it is not improbable that the portrait of Claudius is a little 
overdrawn by an artist whose touch is quickened by a burning 
sense of wrong and hatred. Undoubtedly, the King was a 
degenerate, base, and ignoble character, devoid of moral prin- 
ciples, whose life shows him a stranger to virtue, and a friend 
to vice; nevertheless, if we would avoid a mystery, we must 
admit his possession of more than common intellectual en- 
dowments and of certain commanding and attractive qualities, 
which enabled him to gain ascendency over the nobles, and to 
sway them in favor of his accession to the throne, as well as to 
win the affection of the Queen, and to retain it even after she 
was aware of his crime. Many men, like Claudius, developed 
in intellect, but stunted in moral growth, have, nevertheless, 
by reason of certain qualities won the favor of the multitude, 
which is characteristically blind or indifferent to the interior 
or spiritual side of its heroes: "vice is by action often 
dignified. ' ' 

A KING OF SHREDS AND PATCHES 

Inspired by a love of rectitude and burning with moral 
indignation, Hamlet continues his efforts to rouse and quicken 
his mother's callous conscience. With brain and heart on fire 
and his thoughts flowing like lava, fiercer, hotter, faster, Ham- 
let 's words sharp as daggers pierce her stolid heart, and open 
wide her eyes to the black and ingrained spots upon her soul. 

[340] 



scene iv. BUFFOON AND CUTPURSE 

Beneath the blasts of his terrible and crushing invective, her 
callousness at length melts away, and, humbled and suffused 
with the sense of shame and guilt, she feels she can bear no 
more. Closing her ears, she cries for mercy against his fierce 
burning words : " 0, Hamlet speak no more ! Thou dost ex- 
pose my naked soul, wherein I see such horrid stains that will 
not be cleared away." 

"Aye, Aye!" answers Hamlet to her words of piteous 
appeal. "But wilt thou stewed in corruption continue in in- 
cestuous union with that murderer and villain ? ' ' 

In reply, his mother can but cry : " 0, Hamlet, speak no 
more! No more! Thy every word pierces my ears, like very 
daggers. No more, sweet Hamlet, speak no more ! ' ' 

The son, however, in supreme excitement is unable to stay 
the full tide of his passionate resentment, and turns from the 
humbled, shamed, and pleading mother to empty the vials of 
his wrath upon her paramour, the murderer and villain. Him, 
for the first time, he openly charges with murder. A very 
slave, he is not a fraction's worth of her former husband. He 
is but a vice of kings, a buffoon, a cutpurse, who, during the 
interregnum, stole away the crown, and wears it, a very King 
of shreds and patches. 

Vice was a comic stock-character common to the Morality 
Plays, which still survived in the days of Shakespeare. The 
term arose from the fact that Vice personified the vicious 
qualities and evil passions of human nature, and was usually 
attired in a motley garb of varied colored patches. A sense- 
less character, full of contradictions and often nothing more 
than a buffoon, he was the forerunner of our modern clown or 
jester, and during the interludes of the drama, was frequently 
allowed to entertain and amuse the groundlings. The Poet 
refers to Vice in several Plays, for example, in The Twelfth 
Night, the clown makes allusion to his forefather, Vice: 

[341] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

"I am gone, sir, 
And anon, sir, 
I'll be with you again 
In a trice, 

Like to the old Vice. 
Your need to sustain; 
Who with dagger of lath, 
In his rage and his wrath, 
Cries Ah, ha! to the devil." 

(IV. 2.) 
A GHOSTLY VISITOR 

While Hamlet in the height of passion is inveighing 
against the murderer and usurper, he catches sight of his 
father's ghost entering the chamber. In surprise he is sudden- 
ly seized with awe and fear, and, forgetting all else, calls on 
the angelic aid of heaven. It is another instance of his deep 
faith in the supernatural. After recognizing the spectre to be 
his father's ghost, he feels uneasy in the guilty fear that it 
comes to chide him for delay in the execution of the ''dread 
command," and, therefore, in eagerness he directly questions 
it in plaintive tones : ' ' What would your gracious figure ? ' ' 

To the critics who maintain that the spectre is not objec- 
tive, or real, but only the reflected production of Hamlet's 
overwrought imagination, the words of the ghost, "This visi- 
tation is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose," offer no 
difficulty ; they are nothing more than the echo of the Prince 's 
own thoughts. Among others, however, defending the reality 
of the ghost, and its actual reappearance in the present scene, 
is Professor Werder, who says: 

"The ghost's visit is only to whet Hamlet's almost 
blunted purpose ; but he does not blame the son, nor read him 
a lecture, because he has done nothing, as the critics would 
have it, nor does he make a crime of his delay, as they do. 
Only Hamlet himself does that. The ghost understands the 
state of things, and leaving the manner and time of the re- 
venge to his son, nowhere intimates that a mere thrust of 
the dagger in hot-blooded thirstiness will suffice. ' ' 

[342] 



scene iv. A GHOSTLY VISITOR 

Hamlet in turn, knows that a purgatorial ghost could in- 
spire nothing evil, nothing more than a licit revenge or pun- 
ishment; and he also knows that, for its attainment, he has 
done all that was possible. It was absolutely necessary, as al- 
ready shown, that before he strike, he should discover the 
good or bad nature of the ghost, as well as the real guilt of 
Claudius. That very night he has for the first time discover- 
ed both, and now when in furtherance of his moral revenge, he 
is laboring to wean the Queen from her criminal infatuation 
for the usurper, and when he has already awakened her dor- 
mant conscience, and brought her to confess in shame her sin- 
ful state, his father's ghost appears, not clad as before in the 
full panoply of war, but in a more familiar garb : he comes a 
suppliant for the soul of the Queen. 

The visit was most opportune ; for though the ghost had 
imposed on Hamlet the command ' ' to contrive naught against 
his mother, ' ' he recognized a probable danger when he saw the 
mother in dread and terror shrinking away from the son whose 
riotous passion surging into rage and fury might impel him 
to a rash or unconscious act of madness. What the mother 
could not do, the ghost of the father does. By his sudden 
appearance he allays at once the violent passion of Hamlet, 
and induces other thoughts and feelings. While briefly re- 
minding his son of the purposed revenge, his words in the 
main concern the Queen. He seems to perceive the interior of 
her mind and heart, her fluctuation between good and evil in a 
contest for and against an amendment of life. Admitting her 
guilt and shame, Gertrude found it difficult to break with the 
past. She saw the right ; but seeing is not doing. In the con- 
flict she felt the force of evil habits strong against the voice of 
conscience. Comprehending her hesitation, the ghost implores 
Hamlet ' ' to speak to her, to step between her and her fighting 

[343] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

soul," in order to support her weak will wavering between a 
continuance in evil and a return to a virtuous life . 

The Queen in amazement had gazed on her son as, with 
eyes fixed on vacancy, he spoke to what seemed from his words 
to be his father's ghost. After a graphic description of his 
surprising action, she herself in surprise and fear questions, 
' ' Why he bends his gaze on airy nothing, and converses in awe 
and fear with the incorporeal and invisible ? ' ' 

In reply, Hamlet points in excitement to the ghost, notes 
his pallid face and blazing eyes, and affirms that his spectral 
form and cause combined have sufficient power to make the 
very stones cry aloud for justice. There is an evident allusion 
to our Savior's words, when to the envious pharisees He re- 
plied : " I say to you, that if these shall hold their peace, the 
stones will cry out." 21 Hamlet again addressing the ghost, 
pleads that he look not on him with such piteous gaze, lest, by 
exciting sentiments of tenderness and compassion, he dissolve 
like dew his sworn purpose of revenge, and bring tears per- 
chance for blood. 

Is the ghost in the present scene to be considered as in- 
dubitably real and objective as in his first visit on the battle- 
ments of Elsinore ? The evidence for its reality, while not as 
convincing as in the former case, seems, nevertheless, sufficient 
to warrant the opinion that it was the same real, purgatorial 
ghost, and not a chimera, or fanciful creation of Hamlet's 
overheated mind. Certain critics may deem it a mere illusion, 
but we are less concerned with their positivistic opinion than 
with the intent of Shakespeare. That he intended it as real is 
shown from his stage direction, which requires the ghost to 
enter visibly upon the scene, and to speak the words assigned 
it. He, moreover, in the First Quarto and in other editions, 
specifies its attire, which differs from that worn on its first 

'iLuke, 19, 40. 

[344] 



scene iv. A GHOSTLY VISITOR 

visit. If the spectre were the product of Hamlet's imagina- 
tion, he would naturally have imagined it as it appeared be- 
fore, clad in full armor. That he alone sees it, is no proof of 
its unreality; since the Poet is known to have accepted the 
immemorial and universal tradition that a ghost can at will 
make itself visible to those only with whom it has to deal. 
The mission of the ghost, moreover, as already shown, was 
secret and to Hamlet alone. 

Yet, says Hudson, "The words put into the ghost's 
mouth, are to be regarded as merely the echo of Hamlet's own 
thoughts. The ancients could not take the idea of subjective 
visions as we use them." A strange remark, indeed, since 
neither a study of psychology, nor great keenness of mind is 
required to distinguish between subjective and objective 
visions. The ancients, as it is well known, were as well aware 
as moderns that persons suffering from high nervous excite- 
ment, or hysteria might be subject to visions; and in con- 
sequence, they did not accept any vision as real without con- 
vincing proof of its reality. Scepticism, moreover, has been a 
luxuriant weed in the garden of the world from time im- 
memorial. Furthermore, that critics of sundry non-Christian 
schools should affirm the subjectivity of the ghost, is, of 
course, a consequence of their principles ; denying a priori the 
supernatural, as well as the immortality of the soul, they 
must in consistency reject the preternatural, or all that is not 
natural. But upon such schools and principles Shakespeare 
frowned. The many Christian truths, which illuminate his 
dramas, clearly show that he was a firm believer in the super- 
natural and in the spirit world. He never fails to employ the 
preternatural, when serviceable, as a powerful element in the 
development of his plots. Writing, not for the reading pub- 
lic, but expressly for the stage, it was but natural that in the 
enactment of his plays, he should make his ghosts objective, in 

[345] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act in. 

order to win more readily the interest of his audiences, which 
like himself were firm believers in the supernatural. 

CONFESS YOURSELF TO HEAVEN 

As Gertrude neither sees nor hears the ghost, she readily 
thinks it the fantastic effect of her son's " ecstasy" or mad- 
ness. She insists that it is nothing more than the coinage of 
his brain, which when the mind is unbalanced is very cunning 
in the creation of such immaterial and invisible objects. 

" Ecstasy," exclaims Hamlet in indignant surprise. 
Though hitherto he had fostered in his mother the notion of 
his dementia, he could not now allow her to continue in the er- 
ror ; it would frustrate his present purpose of leading her back 
to a virtuous life. Accordingly, he earnestly insists upon his 
sanity, and implores her not to imagine that both his re- 
proaches for her evil conduct and his exhortation to a better 
life, are the utterances of a demented mind. His pulse beats 
as healthful as her own and with the same natural regularity. 
Let her challenge him to an acknowledged test, and he will 
repeat with exactitude every word spoken before and after 
the appearance of the ghost, a feat which she well knows no 
madman can perform. 

In tones softened down from high excitement to a deep 
feeling of filial affection, he lovingly pleads in the name of 
God 's grace that she soothe not her troubled conscience with 
the unctious thought that his madness, and not her sinfulness 
has inspired his words. Such delusion will bring but false 
health to her ulcerous soul, and leave it to grow all unseen 
in rank corruption. He urges her to confess her sins, to 
grieve for the past, to resolve avoidance of further trespass, 
and not by continued concubinage to spread further the com- 
post of evil on her soul, lest her increasing guilt may rise in 
the face of heaven with corruption more offensive. In tones 

[346] 



scene iv. MASTER THE DEVIL 

of deep sorrow glowing with affection, he craves her pardon 
for his virtuous denunciation of her past and warmth of 
pleading in behalf of her better and nobler self j the times 
have grown so gross from luxurious living that " virtue itself 
of vice must pardon beg," woo the favor of the wicked, and 
deem it a privilege to do them good. 

If we consider the plaintive and whole-soul intensity of 
the son's utterances, the solemn and religious adjurations, the 
grave and well-grounded remonstrances heightened in grow- 
ing climax ; if we duly estimate the fiery glow of a moral na- 
ture whose virtuous repugnance for evil inspires him by burn- 
ing appeals to awaken to a sense of sin and shame the slum- 
bering conscience of his erring mother, we have strong reasons 
to conclude that by the powerful portrayal of his hero in 
this, one of his grandest scenes, the Poet again wishes to im- 
press upon us the fact that his hero is not a man demented 
and morally irresponsible, but of sound mind, and even of 
sane minds the sanest. 

MASTER THE DEVIL 

The mother had been roused to fear and terror by her 
son's invectives, but now she feels her better self stirred to 
consciousness by his words of kindly feeling, which clearly 
manifested his sympathy and love, and she exclaimed : 

"0, Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.' ' 

With a pleading tone of affection he enjoins that she cast away 
the worser part and live the purer with the better half. In 
presence of her repentant disposition, he earnestly supplicates 
her to enter upon an immediate amendment of life. Her in- 
cestuous marriage is null and void, and to continue therein 
is to live in perpetual sin. The only remedy is absolute 
separation ; but to enjoin it in her circumstances, is to enjoin 

[347] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

the dethronement of Claudius, and this under present condi- 
tions, he sees is impossible, save by the avenging blow, which 
he soon expects to strike. In the meantime, he insists upon 
her avoidance of the proximate occasion of sin. She must 
at once assume the virtue of chastity, though she have it not ; 
assume it, not in pretense, but in an efficacious desire, which 
ordinarily facilitates its inward acquirement. To show how 
easy amendment is he dwells like a philosopher on the power 
of good and evil customs and habits, and, in a pithy exposi- 
tion of their nature, formation, and eradication, gives an 
excellent summary of what Catholic moral philosophers treat 
more discursively. 

Habits naturally result from the frequent repetition of 
the same act, and this repetition inclines to facility of action. 
If the inclination be to an action morally good, it is called 
virtue; but if to one morally evil, it is known as vice. The 
latter, says Hamlet, is a monster that like a devil destroys all 
consciousness of wrong-doing ; while the former is an angel to 
the virtuous, for it gives facility and ease to the exercise of 
virtue. Hence he urges his mother to restrain her evil pas- 
sion. By each abstention from vice, she will not only weaken 
her evil habit, but also accustom and strengthen herself in 
the opposite virtue; and as custom ''can almost destroy the 
stamp of nature/' it will soon arm her with the "wondrous 
potency" of mastering the devil or of throwing him out al- 
together. 

The unhappy mother's wail of sorrow had inspired him 
with sentiments of pity and compassion, such as pure hearts 
feel for the weak and fallen; and a son's devotion, which was 
heightened by Christian faith, prompted his supreme efforts 
to transform her cry of misery into a firm and religious re-, 
solve. Now bidding his mother good night, he assures her in 
filial fondness that as soon as, contrite of heart and resolved 

[348] 



scene iv. A CAUTION 

to amend, she humbly prostrates herself before God to im- 
plore forgiveness, he too on bended knee will ask her blessing. 
In this interview, in which Hamlet ''moulds his mother 
like wax to his better will by the miraculous energy of his ex- 
pressions, his whole attitude is that of an inspired prophet. 
Laboring giant-like to save her struggling soul, he reaches 
down a redeeming hand through the darkness of the deep 
abyss, and drags her, half willing, half reluctant, bruised, 
trembling, bleeding, into the full daylight of God's holy sum- 
mits," 1 where the erring and repentant find grace, strength 
and consolation. 

A CAUTION 

After bidding his mother good night, Hamlet turns and 
pauses some moments before the corpse of Polonius. Pre- 
occupied in the moral conflict with his mother at the time of 
the minister 's death, he had scarcely realized its meaning ; but 
with calmness of mind restored, he recognizes the gravity of 
his rash and luckless act. 

Did Polonius merit his fate like others who intruded 
themselves upon him, and entangled themselves in the work 
of his "revenge"? The minister was far from innocent. 
After Claudius he was, in the eyes of Hamlet, the worst of- 
fender, and of the royal coterie of sycophants the most de- 
tested. Promoting, like a time-serving politician, the inces- 
tuous marriage in violation of the moral law recognized by 
Church and State; abetting the base ambition of the wicked 
Claudius, even to violating Hamlet's right to the crown; in- 
truding himself in dishonorable espionage upon him on all 
occasions ; advocating repeatedly and urgently his confinement 
in a prison; traducing his character to Ophelia, and thereby 
ruining her innocent and happy life, and hastening her un- 
timely death; all this and more is charged against the old 

1 G-eo. Miles, "Essay on Hamlet". 

[349] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET actiii. 

minister, who ambitioning the premiership, became with little 
shame and less honor the willing prime mover in the evil 
cause of the greatest criminal in all Denmark. 

When Polonius fell overtaken in dishonor, Hamlet, never- 
theless, repented the undesigned blow. To him, an uncon- 
scious agent, it was rather an unfortunate than a guilty act. 
Its responsibility must rest with Heaven; it had willed it so. 
Having made him "the scourge and minister" of its purga- 
torial agent from the spirit world, it had designed him as the 
unwitting instrument of this man's death. Hence, morally 
guiltless, he can with clear conscience say before God and 
man, ' ' I will answer well the death I gave him. ' ' 

Again turning to bid his mother good-bye, he observes 
her dejected mien, and with sentiments of filial devotion as- 
sures her that if she thought his conduct cruel, his purpose 
was only to be kind. A glance at the corpse gives birth to the 
thought that happy chance had saved him from frustrating 
beyond hope his purpose of "revenge." The accidental death 
of Polonius was a bad beginning ' ' and worse remains behind. ' ' 

His assumed madness now revealed, Hamlet felt the 
necessity of enjoining secrecy. Hence before departing he ex- 
claims, ' ' one word more, good lady. ' ' Gertrude, though peni- 
tent and tractable, feels bewildered concerning her future 
conduct, and in mental anxiety asks, "What shall I do?" 
In words of enforced irony he replies : ' ' By no means do what 
I bid you." Let the bloated King by amorous arts induce you 
to betray the secret you have learned, that my madness is 
naught but craftiness. These words are another flash-light 
to illumine those who may be in darkness concerning the 
hero's real sanity. Insane persons may affirm their sanity; 
but no one demented has been known to claim that his mad- 
ness is but craftiness. 

1 ' How, ' ' asks Hamlet in further irony, ' ' can she, a Queen, 
[350] 



scene iv. MARSHAL TO KNAVERY 

fair, sober, and wise, hide from a paddock, a bat, a gib, a 
secret that so much concerns him ? " A paddock, bat, and gib 
were all familiars of witches and were acquainted with their 
secrets. 

"Shall she," continues Hamlet, "in spite of good sense 
and honor, imitate the famous ape, and at her own peril un- 
peg the basket on the house's top, and let the birds fly?" His 
reference is to some story or fable which, though well known 
at the time, has since been lost. The mother in reply earnestly 
assures him of her fidelity which she solemnly pledges on her 
life. The son in turn discloses his knowledge of the King's 
new design. 

THEY MARSHAL ME TO KNAVERY 

It may be asked, how did Hamlet come to know so soon 
that Claudius had decided to hurry him off to England on 
the morrow ? The intended embassy was known only to Polo- 
nius and the young spies. Some suppose that on the way to 
his mother he had overheard the conversation of Claudius and 
his secret agents; others think, what seems a more probable 
solution, that he got the news from his trusty friend, Horatio, 
for whom he had obtained some position at Court, where he 
could discover state secrets. To Hamlet's penetrating mind, 
which delights in intellectual subtleties, the scheme of Clau- 
dius is as clear as day. The pretended embassy is a snare, 
and the two spies with sealed letter he will trust no more 
than poisonous reptiles. Conscious of his practical strength 
to render futile any plot against his person, he feels prepared 
for everything, and in confidence defies the King and his se- 
cret agents. They bear the mandate and marshal him to 
knavery. If it go hard with them, let them look to it. Al- 
ready, he has conceived a counterplot as his words probably 
indicate. Let the nefarious work go on. It shall be sport to 

[ 351] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act in. 

have the engineer hoisted with his own petard. He shall delve 
below the mine and blow them to the moon. Cunning shall 
be met with cunning. His assured success he contemplates 
in fancy, and smiling informs his mother : 

"0, 'tis most sweet 
When in one line two crafts directly meet." 

The expression seems to indicate what is afterwards disclosed 
that he would have another craft sail after, and meet in open 
sea the royal ship on which he was bound for England. 

After uttering the last good-night to his departing 
mother, he starts to drag the corpse away, but pauses a mo- 
ment to speak an epitaph over the dead counselor ; this foolish 
prating knave has in death what he lacked in life, silence, 
secrecy, and gravity. 



[352] 



ACT FOURTH 

SCENE FIRST 

INTERCHANGING MOVEMENTS 

The accidental slaying of Polonius wrought many 
changes, and with them the Fourth Act is wholly concerned. 
Hamlet 's premature and fatal stroke was an error which arose 
from his failure to hold tenaciously to the fixed course 
which reason and conscience had prescribed. Accident alone 
had fortunately saved him from ruining through blind fury 
the one sole purpose of his existence. His blunder impels him 
to resolve upon a more firm adhesion to his predetermined 
course, and to proceed with redoubled foresight and caution. 

The first consequence of his error, is the necessity of con- 
senting to be hurried away from Denmark, as a dangerous 
madman, even though he foresees that such enforced absence 
will halt his sworn purpose. Aware that Claudius, after pene- 
trating his disguise and suspecting its probable purpose, will 
strain every nerve to rid himself of a dangerous avenger, he 
must now more than ever guard against his uncle 's villainies. 
Though he be shut off from an opportunity of adopting some 
new method of disguise, he perceives it helpful for the pres- 
ent to continue in the role of a madman, even if it be some- 
what worn and less serviceable. It will shield him in the public 
eye from responsibility for the slaying of Polonius and, more- 
over, offer the King a reasonable excuse for sending him 
abroad. 

Certain critics who seem forgetful of Shakespeare's 
legerdemain in the apparent lengthening out of the drama, as 

[ 353 ] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET activ. 

already shown 23 assert that its action limps in the Fourth 
Act, and at the beginning of the Fifth. A little reflection, 
we think, will show that it is precisely here that new tragic 
and dramatic elements enter and hurry us on to the end. 
Hamlet's error is the turning point of the drama, and upon 
it hinge all subsequent events. The Prince, hitherto, on the 
offensive, and the King on the defensive, now change places. 
The error of the former has roused the latter to aggression, 
and at once Claudius enters upon a role most fatal to himself, 
while to the avenger the most propitious and decisive of results. 
Of the dual movement of the drama, the first comes to rest, 
when the assailant had well nigh paralyzed his cause; the 
second, which is of no less importance than the first, begins 
with the Fourth Act, wherein the king, who is next to Hamlet 
the most important character, dominates the action, and dis- 
closes himself in the genuine colors of a criminal. These two 
interchanging movements now constitute the action of the 
drama. Neither Hamlet nor Claudius understands and con- 
trols them. 

THE KING'S ALARM 

In the meanwhile, Claudius had been pacing in anxiety 
his private apartment, impatiently awaiting the return of 
Polonius, who had promised to bring him without delay an un- 
biased report of the secret meeting between Hamlet and his 
mother. But instead of the minister, the Queen enters hastily 
in profound agitation. Her evident distress, marked by sighs 
and heaving bosom, almost deprives her of speech, as she 
stands before her expectant but astonished husband. 

"Where is your son?" exclaims Claudius in alarm. 
' ' What is the cause of your strange and violent emotion ? ' ' 

"Ah, my lord," gasps Gertrude, "you know not what a 
horrid thing I have seen to-night." 

23 Chap. VI, p. 51. 

[354] 



scene i. THE KING'S ALARM 

."What?" demands Claudius amazed and suspicious. 
' ' Gertrude, tell me, how does Hamlet ? ' ' 

True to her promise, she follows Hamlet's injunction to 
maintain belief in his madness, and with maternal ingenuity 
gives the King a distorted account of the killing of Polonius. 
Naturally suppressing the fact that Hamlet had intended the 
stroke for Claudius, she insists on his genuine madness : he is 
"mad as the sea and wind when both contend which is the 
mightier. ' ' 

"0 heavy deed!" replies the King, who is not deceived. 
Armed with fuller knowledge than the Queen supposes, he 
exclaims in deep concern : " It would have been so with us had 
we been there. Roaming at large in full liberty Hamlet is a 
constant menace to us all. Alas, how shall I answer this bloody 
deed ? It will be charged to me, and justly so, since, foreseeing 
the danger, I should have kept this mad young man tethered 
in restraint. But my great love for him, ' ' continues Claudius 
in hypocrisy, "blinded me to what was proper. Where has 
he gone?" 

1 ' To carry off the corpse, ' ' replies the Queen. She does her 
best to allay her husband 's great perturbation. She places her 
son's rash conduct in favorable light, and resorting to fic- 
tion, asserts that she left him weeping over his mad and 
luckless act. 

"0, Gertrude, come away!" exclaims Claudius. "The 
sun of the morrow shall no sooner touch the mountain peaks 
than we shall ship him hence. With all our majesty and 
skill we must defend and excuse his murderous deed before 
the people. Ho, Guildenstern ! " 

In quick response both spies enter and listen to the king 's 
command: "Go, get assistance and seek out Hamlet. In 
madness he has killed Polonius and dragged his corpse away. 
But mark you, treat him gently and address him kindly. 

[ 355 ] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act iv. 

Haste away, I pray you, and bring the body to the chapel. ' ' 

The spies departed. Claudius in mental disturbance ex- 
presses his fear of the populace. "Come away," he says 
to Gertrude. "Our wisest councelors must be instantly 
called together to learn of the untimely act and what we mean 
to do. We must assure them of the Prince's actual madness, 
and so explain his strange antics at the Play, as well as the 
killing of Polonius, and further how in tender love and 
solicitude we have arranged to send him abroad for change 
of scene and treatment. So, mayhap, forestalling public 
clamor and suspicion, we may keep our name untainted by 
poison- winged slander. 0, Gertrude, come away! 

i l My soul is full of discord and dismay. ' ' 



[356] 



SCENE SECOND 

THE KING'S SPONGES 

At the command of Claudius, Rosencrantz and Guilden- 
stern hastened away to discover where Hamlet had concealed 
the corpse of Polonius. Hearing their loud calls, the Prince 
exclaims : ' ' But soft, what noise ? who calls on Hamlet ? ' ' On 
turning he perceives the young spies approaching, and, in 
deep resentment at their continuous dogging of his steps, 
utters the sarcastic words, ''0, here they come." 

If on account of former friendship he had on previous 
occasions treated them with some deference and respect, his 
attitude towards them is now wholly changed. For a time 
the spies had attempted to conceal their official role, and, 
under the assumption of continued friendly relations, were 
careful to use kindly words and show obsequious deference. 
But after Hamlet had forced upon them his knowledge of 
their real purpose at Court, they were less exact in main- 
taining their disguise. Intruding their unwelcome presence 
more frequently upon him, they questioned him more directly, 
boldly, and brusquely than the Prince was accustomed to 
permit. 

Hamlet on his part considered their shameful betrayal of 
his friendship for the royal favor a treacherous act, which 
cancelled every claim to his affection and respect. In conse- 
quence, he looked upon them as more or less open enemies whose 
presence was more than ever hateful, and whom he trusted 
as much as " adders fanged." Hence in the present in- 
stance he treats them with marked discourtesy, scorns their 
questions, and addresses them in expressly offensive terms. 

When Rosencrantz enters hurriedly, and without cere- 
[357] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET activ. 

mony demands in heated words: "What have you done with 
the dead body?" Hamlet in mock gravity replies: "I have 
compounded it with dust to which it is akin. ' ' 

But, as Rosencrantz continues to question him with the 
same boldness and insistency, the Prince asserts his dignity 
and their unworthiness by demanding how the Royal Dane 
should reply to a sponge. 

Rosencrantz feels the stinging force of the offensive ap- 
pellation, and in, the assertion of his honor asks in resentment, 
"Take you me for a sponge, my lord?" 

"Ay, sir," answers Hamlet: "you are sponges that soak 
up information for the King, ' ' and against their rising anger, 
he insists all the more offensively upon the irritating epithet. 
The hateful comparison of the spies with a sponge was no 
doubt borrowed from Suetonius, who in his life of Vespasian 
narrates that, when reproached for appointing unworthy per- 
sons to high office, the emperor replied, such men, like sponges, 
served him well: when they had drunk their full, they were 
then fittest to be pressed. 

Again in galling sarcasm Hamlet compares the spies to 
food which the royal ape stowes away in the corner of his 
jaws; the first to be mouthed and the last to be swallowed. 
When Rosencrantz parries the opprobrious comparison by 
feigning not to understand him, Hamlet rejoices in their stu- 
pidity : 

A jest's prosperity lies in the ear 

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue 

Of him that makes it. (Love's Labor Lost, V. ii.) 

The last shaft which he hurls, barbed with irony, lies in 
the proverb that a knavish or cunning remark never enters a 
fool's head, and they indeed are fools, since they do not rea- 
lize their base and contemptible position. 

The spies, in anxiety to cut off further parley, again insist 
I 358 ] 



scene ii. THE KING'S SPONGES 

on learning where the body of Polonius is, and inform Hamlet, 
that be must go with them to the King. He, however, con- 
tinues to maintain his role of madness and, ignoring their 
eager questions, designedly talks nonsense, speaks in riddles 
to tease and puzzle them, and, with the purpose of mystifying 
them, resorts to phrases of subtle meaning. Playing on the 
words body and king, he affirms that the King's body is with 
the King, but not the King's soul, that is, Claudius — a king of 
shreds and patches — is devoid of the characteristics of a king, 
or of true kingliness, because he has not the soul of a king. 
To further mystify and astound them, he asserts that the 
King is a thing. 

The sentence is left unfinished, because he is interrupted 
by Guildenstern who in astonishment exclaims, ''What, my 
lord, the King a thing ! ' ' 

"Ay, sir," replies Hamlet, "a thing of nothing, a thing 
of no value ; bring me to him. ' ' The thought was perhaps sug- 
gested by the words of Job : ' ' Man cometh forth like a flower 
and is destroyed and fleeth as a shadow, ' ' or mayhap by those 
of the royal prophet: "Man is like to vanity: his days pass 
away like a shadow." 

In departing, Hamlet invites the spies to play the game 
of hide and seek : the fox indeed is now hidden, let all set off 
to find him. He could have used no term more appropriate for 
the foxy politician ; of all animals, the fox is reputed the most 
cunning, and of this trait in particular Polonius had plumed 
himself the most. 24 



2 4 The appropriateness of the term again appears, when we consider that, as 
already noted, Polonius was a burlesque of the aged prime minister Burgh- 
ley, who was known as the "Old Fox". 



[359] 



SCENE THIRD 

A CHERUB THAT SEES THEM 

The King enters, accompanied by armed attendants. The 
discovery that only by chance he had escaped the fatal blow 
which fell on Polonius, has filled him with fear and dismay, 
and caused him to surround himself more than ever with 
trusty body-guards. In soliloquy he gives expression to his 
distracting thoughts and feelings. Until yesterday he had 
imagined himself enjoying the fruits of his crime in full secur- 
ity; but the revelation that his secret murder was known to 
Hamlet, was a rude awakening to his danger, and impelled 
him to provide for his safety by taking at once aggressive 
measures against the probable avenger. Like Macbeth, he 
thinks, "to be thus is nothing, but to be safely thus." To let 
this madman go loose is most dangerous. Disease grown des- 
perate demands a desperate remedy. But to avoid stirring 
up popular discontent, and perhaps inciting to riotous 
tumult, he decides to proceed smoothly and to disguise 
his purpose. If for his own personal safety, he must 
hurry his nephew out of Denmark, he must also 
satisfy the public that his action is not prompted by malice or 
caprice, but by the mature deliberation of his councilors. 
For this purpose he had hastily assembled his "wisest friends" 
for consultation. Having considered the accidental slaying of 
Polonius and its painful circumstances, the council decided, 
for prudential reasons, to suppress all the facts and to inter 
him as hastily and secretly as possible. Concerning Hamlet's 
fate, opinions were more divided. However much the King 
desired at heart to rid himself of his nephew, either by con- 
finement in an asylum upon a judicial sentence of insanity, or 

[360] 



scene in. A CHERUB 

by summoning him before a court of justice to answer for the 
slaying of Polonius, he was equally averse to either course. 
The latter was objectionable on the part of the councilors, 
who, on the score of insanity, held Hamlet unamenable to the 
criminal law; and on the part of Claudius, who feared that a 
public and judicial process might lead Hamlet to divulge the 
secret crime. Besides, either process would arouse the opposi- 
tion of the Queen and the masses; the Prince is the idol of 
Denmark and the most beloved of the 'distracted' or thought- 
less multitude, which, ruled, not by judgment or reason, but 
by popular fancy and prejudice, weighs not the crime, but the 
punishment of the criminal. The only prudential course 
remaining is approved by every councilor: let the Prince be 
sent abroad for a time, until the fickle multitude shall have 
forgotten the deplorable death of the old minister. This ex- 
pedient was instantly approved by the King, whose astute 
mind quickly grasped the opportunity to rid himself forever of 
the sole obstacle to his complete happiness. 

While Rosencrantz with troubled mien enters to complain 
of Hamlet's refusal to disclose the hidden corpse, Guildenstern 
remains in the vestibule, awaiting the pleasure of the King. 
As soon as Claudius hears of the failure of his agents, he is 
surprised and angered, and summons the culprit before him. 
As the Prince enters in the actual custody of military guards, 
he is haughtily and peremptorily ordered to give the 
desired information. Hamlet, however, assumes the same 
temper as his uncle, and only perplexes him by harassing re- 
plies. In fancy, he already sees the corpse of the chancellor, the 
food of worms in the corruption of the grave. But worms, he 
assumes, which feed on the corpse of so distinguished a politi- 
cal wire-puller, must needs partake of his qualities and become 
political. The idea suggests a pun, and, Shakespeare indulging 
his propensity, plays on the words "diet" and "worms," in 

[361] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act iv. 

allusion to the Diet which Charles convoked at Worms in 1521. 
No two words were better known to audiences of the Poet's 
day; it was common knowledge that the emperor had sum- 
moned the contumacious monk to Worms to defend himself 
before the national Diet, or convocation of all the princes and 
rulers of the German empire. 25 

From punning, Hamlet turns to assure Claudius that he as 
well as all creatures shall, like Polonius, meet the same in- 
evitable fate. A "fat king" like Claudius shall have the same 
end as a lean beggar; both shall be of service to the worms, 
though in a variable diet. By other personal remarks, Hamlet 
further irritates the King, who, returning to the insistent 
question, angrily demands, ' ' where is Polonius ? ' ' 

Hamlet's sole reply, though witty, is most cuttingly sar- 
castic, and indicates his contemptuous loathing for the royal 
criminal. Distinguishing between heaven and the lower re- 
gions, he counsels Claudius to look for Polonius in heaven, but 
he must send a messenger; since he himself can find no en- 
trance there. If Polonius, however be in the other place, the 
King need send no messenger; for he himself will find glad 
welcome in hades. 

When Claudius orders attendants to hasten away in search 
of the corpse, Hamlet in mock gravity assures him that neither 
need he worry nor they make haste, since Polonius will stay 
till they come. The attendants departed, the King turns to 
Hamlet, and, after expressing great grief at his bloody deed, 
begins to unfold his new project. Deeming himself secure in 
the secrecy of his purpose, he pleads that, in tender care for 
the Prince's special safety, he is obliged to despatch him in- 
stantly to England. His subterfuge is indeed most plausible, 



2 5 At Worms, a city of the grand duchy of Hesse, many important German 
Diets were convoked through the centuries. The term "Diet" was ap- 
plied to several political bodies of medieval and modern Europe. 



[362] 



scene in. THE KING'S TREACHERY 

and so insistent is he on the benevolence of his intentions, 
that Hamlet, had he been a madman, would never have de- 
tected them. His acute mind, however, penetrates the crimin- 
al's villainous hypocrisy, and, in sarcastic reply, he affirms, 
"I see a cherub that sees your purpose." His costly error has 
taught him that in the accomplishment of his heavenly ap- 
pointed duty, he must rely less upon his own efforts and more 
upon the higher guidance of the "Divinity that shapes our 
ends." 

His brief reference to angels and the implied assurance of 
their aid is full of significance. It reveals a supernatural 
faith, which inspires him with the confidence that, in carrying 
out the mandate of the purgatorial spirit, he will have angels 
fighting in his cause. They are the agents of God, the minis- 
ters of His grace, and the guardians of men. Since they are 
on his side, why need he fear results? He may defy the 
treachery of his uncle. "This beauteous and sudden intima- 
tion of heavenly insight and interference against the insidious 
purpose of the king's show of regard for Hamlet's welfare," 
says Caldicott, "flashes upon us with a surprise and interest 
rarely to be found, and worthy of this great master of the 
drama. ' ' 

THE KING'S TREACHERY 

' ' Come, for England ! ' ' exclaims Hamlet, and, on depart- 
ing from the royal presence, he accentuates his ill-feeling 
towards his uncle by ignoring him, and bidding farewell to 
his mother only, even though she be absent. She is the only 
tie that binds him to his native land. His words prompt the 
king to suggest a farewell also to his "loving father;" but the 
Prince in scornful emphasis spurns his show of treacherous 
affection, rejects his claim of father, and reiterates his first 
farewell. By a witty subterfuge, he escapes even a seeming 
courtesy to the hated criminal : 

[363] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET activ. 

Ham. Come; for England! Farewell, dear mother. 

King. Thy loving father, Hamlet. 

Ham. My mother: father and mother is man and wife; 

man and wife is one flesh, and so, my mother. Come, 

for England! (Exit.) 

His words take for granted the indissoluble bond of Christian 
marriage: "Wherefore shall a man leave father and mother, 
and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one 
flesh. Therefore now, they are not two, but one flesh. What 
therefore, God hath joined together, let no man put asun- 
der." "So ought men to love their wives as their own 
bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself; for no man 
hateth his own flesh." A man cannot be divided from 
himself. 26 Hamlet's words indicate the good old Catholic 
doctrine, which ruled in his day, as it did throughout Chris- 
tendom before the misinterpretation of Christian truths by the 
religious reformers of northern Europe in the sixteenth 
century. 

Hamlet had met the haughty questions of the King 
with equal imperiousness. His offensive allusions and com- 
parisons, heightened by resistless withering scorn, and 
intensified by his ferocity of attack, humiliated Claudius, 
filled him with rankling pain, and roused him, though out- 
wardly composed before the court, to secret indignation 
and to new fears and alarms. If Hamlet's offensive words, 
as well as his fierceness, seemed pardonable to the courtiers, 
who imagined him demented, the King, who alone knew 
the true situation, realized their dangerous significance; 
they were the words of a son who was even now bent on 
avenging the murder of his father. He might strike at any 
unguarded moment; and the thought fills him with a most 
unroyal panic. In consequence, yielding to his fears, he 

26 Ephes. V, 25. — 1 Thess. IV, 3-5.— Gen. II, 24. — Matt. IX, 6. — Mark, X, 
11-12.— Luke, XVI, 18.— Rom. VII, 2-3. 

[364] 



scene in. THE KING'S TREACHERY 

excitedly commands his attendants to pursue the Prince, to 
follow close on his heels, to lure him aboard ship, and away 
with him from Denmark that very night. 

Events are crowding fast upon each other; but yester- 
day, Hamlet had unmasked the crime of Claudius, and on the 
same evening had slain Polonius; and in consequence he 
must now on the morrow quietly submit to be sent away to 
England. Those critics who imagine that a simple sword- 
thrust is all that is implied in the revenge of Hamlet, are 
apt to agree with Gervinus, when he asserts: "Hamlet's 
failure of vengeance must now compel him to act at last 
most powerfully in earnest." "Just the reverse is true," 
says Werder, "if any thing could occur to bring him to his 
senses, to impress upon him the necessity of checking the 
pace of his task, it is this failure, this misthrust." It has 
proved him in the eyes of Claudius, a dangerous madman, 
who should be confined, watched, and kept from doing 
further harm. 

Though by his blunder, he has put himself in the power 
of the enemy, he sees that the King, fearing to aim directly 
at his life, will resort to strategy; but in this game he feels 
confident of outplaying his opponent. Swift to interpret 
the purpose of Claudius and his secret agents, he is as 
ready in a counterplot. It is to his advantage to accompany 
them; at home he shall be daily plagued by the hateful 
presence of the King's guards, who now accompany his every 
step. By sailing, he shall rid himself of them, and, moreover 
be free to discover the nefarious plot, to outwit the criminal, 
and to obtain a tangible proof of the intended crime with the 
view of using it against him. Prom this time on, neglecting 
the role of lunacy, save in his strife with Laertes at Ophelia's 
grave, he acts with energy, and stands every ready on a 
watchful defence. Hitherto he had marred his project by 

[365] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET activ. 

too much reliance on his own devices and strength, now he 
will rely more upon the aid of Divine Providence. 

As soon as the royal attendants, hurrying after Hamlet, 
had left the King alone, he unbosoms himself of his secret 
design to murder Hamlet. Unlike Macbeth, who by nature 
open, direct, and honest, rushes only from impulse into blun- 
dering crime, Claudius, by nature malicious, indirect, and 
feline, reveals himself an undoubted sleek, cunning, calculat- 
ing, coldblooded, and smiling villain. Panic-stricken by fear, 
his mind is tortured with anxious doubts whether the tribut- 
ary king of England will heed his murderous request. The 
sentence of death contained in the sealed document is, he 
thinks, clear enough, and direct, and just. The culprit, under 
pretence of madness, had murdered an innocent old man, the 
Chancellor of State, and even now breathes forth murder 
against himself as well as others. Unable, by reason of the 
murderer's rank and influence, to proceed legally against him 
at home, he, therefore, on the authority of Denmark's ad- 
mitted suzerainty, commands England's vassal king to exe- 
cute the criminal secretly without further shift. To allay 
his misgivings, Claudius in soliloquy invokes several reasons 
why the vassal king should not disregard his urgent com- 
mand. While lives the Prince, his frame shall be racked 
with feverish fears: 

"For like the hectic in my blood he rages, 
And thou must cure me; till I know 'tis done, 
Howe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er begun." 

The scene shows a notable change in Claudius. His 
recent attempt at repentance had been prompted more by 
fear than by compunction of heart ; hence, when it brought 
him face to face with the absolute conditions of forgiveness, 
he turned his back on heaven, and henceforth, abandoned by 
divine grace, he proceeds from bad to worse. As Macbeth 

[366] 



scene in. THE KING'S TREACHERY 

reached the crisis in the murder of Banquo, so does Claudius 
in the attempted murder of Hamlet. Both, having deter- 
mined to retain the crown at any cost, plot other murders 
without remorse of conscience; and these hurry them on 
blindly to their doom. 



[367] 



SCENE FOURTH 

IN MENTAL CONFLICT 

The Fourth Scene is not found in the Folio, and some 
claim that, apart from its comparative feebleness, it is false 
and unnatural. But says Professor Werder : 

" Surely not as a prisoner on the brink of exile, sur- 
rounded by royal guards, is there a motive for self-re- 
proach. One thing is clear, unless Hamlet planned the 
subsequent piratical capture, the soliloquy is not only 
superfluous and contradictory, but even absurd.'' 

The scene, exclusive of the soliloquy, serves, however, a 
good purpose. If, according to a law of the drama, no new 
character may be dragged in at the close of a play, it is nec- 
essary that Fortinbras in some manner enter into the action 
of the tragedy. Hence, the young prince, to whom reference 
has been made in the First Act and again in the Second, is 
now personally introduced to us, as he leads his Norwegian 
troops in spectacular march through Elsinore on his way to 
the confines of Poland. The scene thus prepares us for the 
important role which, on his return from the war, he is des- 
tined to play at the close of the tragedy. 

The reply of the captain that Fortinbras with an army of 
twenty thousand men, is marching against Poland to gain 
' ' a little patch of ground that in it has no profit but the name, 
and for which he would not give five ducats, ' ' surprises Ham- 
let greatly, and he philosophizes upon the fact that so many 
men, tricked by fantasy and fame, fight unto death "for a 
plot of ground which is not tomb enough to contain the 
slain;" and that Fortinbras, "puffed up with divine ambi- 
tion," exposes himself to death "even for an egg-shell." 

[368] 



scene iv. IN MENTAL CONFLICT 

Rightly to be great, he concludes, is not to fight for trifles. 
Fame is but a phantom; "the paths of glory lead but to 
the grave. ' ' His thoughts are those of Joan of Arc : 

" Glory is like a circle in the water, 
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself 
Till by broad spreading, it desperse to nought. ' ' 
(Henry VI. 1. 1. ii.) 

The project of the Norwegian prince prompts Hamlet 
to reflect upon his own position. His enforced inactivity 
compared with Fortinbras' freedom, rouses him again, as in 
former soliloquies, to violent agitation. In indignation and 
desire of "revenge," he is rent by conflicting sentiments. 
If, as on previous occasions, impassioned emotions breathe 
instant revenge, and strong contending principles draw him 
in opposite directions, higher feelings of justice and necessity 
retard and smother their violence. 

This mental conflict is chiefly apparent at moments of 
great depression like the present, when some circumstance 
causing the fluctuating fires of passion to flame wildly up in 
him, he berates himself unduly as a coward of craven scrup- 
les, lagging in "revenge;" but his deep moral feelings, keen 
sensibilities, and quick and powerful intellect enable him 
to put down the passionate rebellion of his lower animal 
nature. The man in an irrational impulse goads the super- 
man to an instant stroke of revenge, and blindly urges him 
to throw consequences to the wind, to act as Laertes talks : 
' ' To Hell, allegiance ! vows, to the blackest devil ! conscience 
and grace to the profoundest pit!" 

Hamlet, however, is not a feather-brained and unprin- 
cipled Laertes, and, precisely because he is not, a fierce, tug- 
ging, agonizing conflict rages between his higher and lower 
nature; and his feelings, terribly insurgent, clamor for the 
upper hand. To appease his dreadful heart-agony, the man 

[369] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET activ. 

indulges in overwrought strains of self-reproach in the hope 
of speedy satisfaction, and, seemingly taking part with his 
riotous passion, goes to pleading its cause most vehemently 
against his higher self; but judgment, nevertheless, keeps 
the upper hand, and though he cannot silence his insurgent 
feelings, he can, and does overrule them by the power of his 
iron will. He differs again from Laertes ; the latter, a youth 
of choleric temperament, is never troubled with scruples and 
a melancholy which induces apathy or indifference to action. 
Though Hamlet often does overcome his apathy by native 
energy of will, he is, nevertheless, confronted on each oc- 
casion, as in the present soliloquy, by an actual and greater 
impediment, which consists in the conscientious obligation of 
obtaining visible and material proofs of the King's guilt, 
before he strike the blow of ''revenge." 

In Hamlet, therefore, we here behold another of the 
many struggles of the man against the superman, which have 
been already pictured. It is a struggle of the natural against 
the supernatural man, of the lower animal nature against 
the higher in a clamorous demand for instant revenge. The 
natural man, knowing no law but that of blood, spurs him on 
to immediate action, and charges his reluctance and hesita- 
tion to cowardice and irresolution; for the lower or irra- 
tional nature, which is actuated solely by blind instincts and 
passions, can recognize in the superman's moral dictates of 
wise and prudent judgments, nothing but "craven scruples 
of thinking too precisely on the event. ' ' Hence, the Prince 's 
torturing, mental conflict arises from his attempts to recon- 
cile two conflicting impulses, and between them to preserve 
his own liberty of will and action in the pursuit of a just and 
adequate ' ' revenge. ' ' In soliloquy he finds ' * examples gross 
as earth," which exhort him to action. There is the Nor- 
wegian prince whose martial spirit in a less noble cause 

[370] 



scene iv. IN MENTAL CONFLICT 

brands his own inaction as cowardice. But in the comparison 
Hamlet does injustice to himself ; the parity fails in essential 
elements. Fortinbras may without scruples lead his troops to 
battle against an open foe in defense of a just and public 
cause according to the common laws of war ; Hamlet on the 
contrary is urged in opposition to religious principles and his 
better judgment to strike down by an apparently illegal act 
the head of the State — a secret criminal — for a hidden 
crime which is known to himself alone, and for which he can 
offer in defense no tangible and material proof. Hence, their 
projects differ as much as night from day. 

From Fortinbras' activity for a trifle, Hamlet turns to 
think of his own inactivity in a cause of greatest import. 
When honor is involved there is nothing trifling. Yet it is 
precisely this sense of honor that restrains his avenging arm. 
To strike the King before obtaining proofs, which will satisfy 
the public mind as to the justice of his act, is to forfeit his 
honor and gain the infamy of an assassin and ambitious 
regicide. Justice, however, is impossible through the ordin- 
ary courts of the realm : they are in complete control of the 
criminal who sways with absolute power. As a last resort, 
Hamlet must, therefore, seek it in the one only way possible. 
If, as the rightful king, he proceed in the cause of justice, 
and by reason of the supreme power vested In himself, he 
judge, and execute Claudius, the citizens of Denmark will, 
nevertheless, be the jurors, who will afterwards examine his 
proofs, and decide upon the justice of the execution. Aware, 
therefore, that he must pause in his "revenge," "when 
honor's at the stake," until he has the absolutely necessary 
proofs, Hamlet, in consequence, concludes the soliloquy with 
words: "0, from this time forth, my thoughts be bloody." 
If he cannot now strike the criminal, let bloody thoughts at 
least speed him on to the attainment of the needed proofs. 

[371] 



SCENE FIFTH 



THE SWEET ROSE OF MAY 

After Hamlet's departure for England, there is a lapse 
of some days, perhaps a whole week, before the opening of 
the fifth scene. Time is thus allowed for Laertes' return from 
Paris to attend his father's funeral. In the meanwhile 
Ophelia's mind has been wrecked by the loss of her father 
and her lover. In the words of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 

11 There is no part in this play in its representation on 
the stage more pathetic than this scene, which I suppose 
proceeds from the utter insensibility Ophelia has to her 
own misfortunes. A great insensibility, or none at all, 
seems to produce the same effect. In the latter case the 
audience supply what is wanting, and with the former they 
sympathize. 



1 1 



In the Folios, the scene opens differently than in our 
modern received text. In the former, the Gentleman is sup- 
planted by Horatio, who enters alone to plead with the Queen 
for an audience with the afflicted Ophelia. That such an 
arrangement is more appropriate, many critics think with 
Dr. Johnson, and of it Dr. Clarke affirms: "We think there 
is something exquisitely appropriate in making Hamlet's 
beloved friend, Horatio, the one who watches over and 
tenderly thinks for Ophelia, during the Prince's absence, 
and brings her to his mother alone. ' ' 

Ophelia seems to have been more or less neglected in 
her misfortune by all save Horatio, a man of noble soul and 
unpretending worth. His esteem and love of Hamlet, as 
well as her sad state, roused a sympathy which impelled him 
to seek a private audience with the Queen at Elsinore, and 

[ 372 ] 



scene v. THE SWEET ROSE OF MAY 

there to expose the case of the afflicted maiden. At the 
Queen's emphatic refusal to admit the grief-stricken girl to 
her presence, he pleads her cause in few but forcible words. 
He discloses her lamentable state, and shows how her demands 
are importunate even to distraction. He describes pathetically 
and truthfully the marks of her madness both in words and ac- 
tion. ' ' There 's tricks in the world, ' ' she says, and she ' ' speaks 
things in doubt," sometimes concerning her dead father, 
and sometimes concerning her dead lover ; and evil-disposed 
listeners collect her broken thoughts and patch them to- 
together to fit their own evil suppositions; hence, he con- 
cludes that it is to the Queen's best interests to speak with 
the demented maiden, in order to hinder " ill-breeding 
minds" from hatching out dangerous conjectures of foul 
play. His conclusion wins not only the Queen's consent but, 
moreover, so stirs her conscience that, at his departure, she 
voices in remorse the sickness of her sin-stricken soul. Sin's 
nature is to turn every trifle into a prologue to some great 
calamity, and her guilty soul is filled with fears of greater 
ills. 

Horatio returns, leading in Ophelia, and he it is who 
follows her away. She enters, according to the stage direc- 
tions of the First Quarto, with her hair down, playing on a 
lute and singing. Horatio, speechless all the while amid her 
gentle ravings, allows the Queen to do the speaking. Of 
the maiden's plight, Vischer says: 

"If ever it can be said of a poetical creation, that it has 
a fragrancy in it, it is this picture of the crazed Ophelia 
and the inmost secret of its bewitching fragrancy is inno- 
cence. Nothing deforms her; not the lack of sense in her 
sense, not the rude naivete of those snatches of song; a 
soft mist, a twilight is drawn .around her, veiling the rough 
reality of insanity." 

[373] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act iv. 

The madness of this 'Rose of May' is turned to favor and to 
prettiness. The gloom of her affliction engenders an over- 
powering pathos. What can be sadder than her story? One 
tithe of Hamlet's woe overwhelms and shatters her young 
mind. By an inspired fitness, the Poet has banished her 
lover from the scene. His simulated madness, however much 
necessitated, would, in contrast with her absolute insanity, 
never have been able to survive the test. 

NURSERY RHYMES 

When Ophelia is conducted before the Queen, she seems 
at first not to recognize her, and gazing about in vacant 
stare, exclaims, " Where is the beauteous majesty of Den- 
mark." The presence of her lover's mother anchors her 
wandering mind, and, all heedless of Gertrude's words, she 
begins to sing of him in snatches of old ballads. They come 
flowing in music from the silent halls of memory, where they 
had entered when perhaps her old nurse sang her to sleep in 
days of childhood. The first is the story of a maiden who 
inquires of a traveller concerning her lost lover. He may 
be known by ''cockle hat, and staff, and sandal shoon." 
These were the honored insignia of religious pilgrims, who, 
in the fulfilment of holy vows or from devotion, journeyed 
to sacred shrines across the seas and often to the Holy Land. 
In those ages of Faith they not only afforded safety to the 
pious stranger in his wanderings through foreign regions, 
but even won for him the respect and honor due to a sacred 
personage. Hence, as a consequence of the common sacred- 
ness of the pilgrim's habit, lovers in their adventures some- 
times resorted to its guise. The ballad was probably sug- 
gested by Hamlet's departure to a foreign clime. In Oph- 
elia's mind all is disorder; ideas and phantasms mingle in 
confusion without sequence and distinctness. Afflicted over 

[374] 



scene v. NURSERY RHYMES 

the dual loss of her father and her lover, her stricken mind 
cannot perceive their objective difference, and with the 
death of the one she also mourns the death of the other. 

Her reference to the legend of the baker's daughter dis- 
closes how the love of Hamlet and her filial love, had sub- 
sisted in her mind in conjunction with the cautions and fears 
which Polonius and Laertes had so indelicately avowed con- 
cerning the danger to her virtue. Though it is not certain 
that she had in her sanity seriously suspected the motives of 
her lover, yet the disagreeable aspersions of his honor were the 
burden of her thoughts; and now she reveals what a deep 
impression they had made upon her. 

The legend had been often used in her early childhood to 
enkindle kind feelings for the poor and unfortunate. Such 
impressions, after others of later years have faded, remain 
still fresh in the memory of the insane, as well as of those in 
second childhood. The story, which is current to-day among 
the nursery tales of Gloucestershire, relates that the Savior 
in disguise entered a baker's shop, asking for some bread; 
and, when the baker charitably put a large piece of dough 
into the oven to bake for Him, his daughter rebuked him, 
and for her unkindness was changed into an owl. The idea 
of this sudden transformation prompts Ophelia to exclaim: 
''Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may 
be." It no doubt suggested the thought of her own unkind- 
ness to Hamlet; for her equally heartless conduct had, she 
believed, made him insane. But as her heartlessness was due 
to obedience, her father's suspicions of her lover's motives 
now recall to her memory another ballad which recounts the 
somewhat analogous case of a man who with false vows had 
betrayed a too trusting maiden. The song she had heard in 
childhood when she did not understand its meaning. The 
stanza she sings to her Valentine she would rather have died 

[375] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET activ. 

than sing when he lay at her feet in the Play; and she 
would not now sing it, were she not crazed by love. 

The character of some of those ballads, thinks Hudson, 
is surprisingly touching. They tell us, as nothing else could 
do, that Ophelia is utterly unconscious of what she is saying. 
Their immodesty is not inconsistent with her purity, as all 
can testify who have had experience with insane patients. 37 
The ballad she sings contains an allusion to an old custom 
according to which the first maiden seen by a man on Feb- 
ruary the fourteenth was considered his Valentine or true 
love for that year. Scott made it the basis of his plot in 
The Fair Maid of Perth. 

From the thought of the wrong done by the false lover of 
the ballad, Ophelia comes to think of the evil done by her 
own lover in the slaying of her father, and in sorrow ex- 
claims: "I cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay 
him in the cold ground. ' ' Her affliction recalls to mind the 
advice she had heard in younger years: "We must be 
patient" in suffering. "Let us hope all will be well." The 
memory of her father gives rise to the associated idea of 
Laertes, and she says: "my brother will know of it," and 
avenge it, "and so I thank you for your good counsel.' l 
These words, no doubt refer to his last farewell, when, be- 
fore departing for Paris, he had cautioned her to have no 
further relations with the Prince. Then that counsel was 
most disagreeable, but now that Hamlet has slain her father, 
it seems wise and good. With a deep bow and a "good night 
sweet ladies, ' ' Ophelia quietly departs, leaving all lost in pity 
and bewilderment. The King alone breaks the solemn silence 

27 Dr. Strachey says: "If we bear in mind the notorious fact that in the 
dreadful visitation of mental derangement, delicate and refined women will 
use language so coarse that it is difficult to guess where they can ever even 
have heard such words; if we remember that mental fever quickens old 
forms into life, and consider that the infant ears of the motherless Ophelia 
might have heard the talk and the songs of such a nurse as that of Juliet, 
we shall find nothing improbable or even unseemly in the poor girl's songs" 

[376] 



scene v. FEARS AND FORBODINGS 

by commanding the friend of her lover to follow after and to 
keep her from harm. 

FEARS AND FOREBODINGS 

Ophelia's parting reference to her brother found an echo 
in the King's soul, and awakened him to a sense of the 
troubles which were sure to come upon him, "not single but 
trooping in battalions;" and these he enumerates in his- 
torical order to the Queen. There is the death of Polonius ; 
then too her son is gone, who is himself the "most violent 
author of his own just remove." Gertrude naturally sup- 
poses his equivocal words to refer to her son's temporary 
absence on the embassy; for Claudius alone knows the secret 
mandate within the sealed packet, and feels certain that her 
son is gone — gone forever. His third cause of fear arises 
from reflection on the fact that the people in wonderment 
at the sudden and secret manner of Polonius' death, are con- 
fused and voice their foul suspicions. It causes him to 
recognize his blunder, both in suppressing the circumstances 
of the old man's death, and in interring him clandestinely 
and hurriedly without the customary public honors due to a 
nobleman of the realm. 

The action of Laertes, however, inspires him with the 
greatest fear. Holding himself aloof from the court, since 
his secret return from France, and concealing his intentions, 
he moves among the people, eagerly seeking information con- 
cerning recent wondrous events. As a consequence, many 
tale-bearers press about him and poison his mind with pestil- 
ential insinuations, buzzers who, though ignorant of the 
facts, do not scruple to charge the King with his father's 
death. Such and other secret information fill Claudius with 
anxiety and fears, and cause him to complain that evil fore- 
bodings, like "a murdering piece" of ordnance afflict him 

[377] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act iv. 

with " superfluous," or imaginary death. In the original 
text the King concludes his speech with the following lines : 

"0 time, how swiftly run our joys away? 
Content on earth was never certain bred. 
To-day we laugh and live, to-morrow dead." 

Claudius had scarce ceased speaking when he heard a 
loud and alarming noise outside the palace doors. The 
Queen in affright exclaims, " 'Alack, what noise is this?" — 
"Where are my Switzers," demands the King. "Let them 
guard the doors." The term Switzers, though originally 
signifying mercenary troops in the hire of a foreign monarch, 
had come, in Shakespeare's day, to be synonymous with the 
body-guard of a king of any country whatsoever. 

"What Claudius feared the most is at hand already. 
Without is a riotous multitude, which, in a wild uproar of 
many voices, clamors to see the King. Amid the commotion, a 
courtier enters in pallor and panic fear, and rushing forward 
shouts, * ' Save yourself, my lord ! ' ' With wild gestures and 
impassioned words he describes how like the ocean surging 
onward over the lowlands with impetuous rage, Laertes at 
the head of an angry mob of citizens has borne down the 
officers of state. In gathering numbers the mad rabble is 
crowding about the palace. On every side is heard the shout, 
"Laertes shall be King!" and with caps, hands, and tongues 
the cry is applauded to the skies. The Queen in anger at the 
news, exclaims, "0, you false Danish dogs!" How cheer- 
fully you yelp and pursue the false trail ! 

We have hitherto seen little of Laertes, but now in the 
absence of Hamlet, he and the King dominate the action. 
Favorably impressed with him at his first brief appearance, 
our impression was, however, soon blurred by his own father, 
who in conversation with Reynaldo insinuated certain evil 

[378] 



scene v. FEARS AND FOREBODINGS 

traits which, the son himself confirms, when at a later stage 
he unfolds his true character. Certain critics, however, are 
wont to magnify Laertes beyond his due. Admitting that 
his character is not exactly virtuous, they see in his love for 
his sister, a noble and exalting element. His affection is 
indeed commendable, and forms admittedly the sole redeem- 
ing trait in his character. But as the observance of one 
commandment will neither excuse nor atone for the violation 
of the other nine, so neither will a love which is instinctive, 
and common to mortals, and, therefore, not a distinctive trait 
of Laertes, wash into whiteness a character which, in the 
following scenes, the Poet paints in colors of indelible black- 
ness. 

When facing Laertes and the mob, Claudius appears to 
the best advantage in the revelation of certain nobler quali- 
ties of his character. We are apt to take too absolutely Ham- 
let 's low estimate of the King, all forgetful, perhaps, that 
this estimate is altogether based on his uncle's shameful 
depravity. Hamlet's keen appreciation of moral good in- 
spires an intense loathing of moral evil, which so blinds him 
to the good graces and qualities of the king that he sees no 
redeeming element in the hated moral monster. Moreover, 
the perversity of Claudius, which, from the circumstances of 
the Play, is more openly exposed and emphasized, is wont 
to obscure whatever natural good qualities he possesses, and 
to leave us but a one-sided view of a many-sided character. 
This may explain why, unfortunately, the role of Claudius is 
usually assigned to an inferior actor, who from want of 
proper interpretation of the King's strength, keen intellect- 
ual powers, and fascination, impersonates him so imperfectly 
as to nullify that subtle balance, which, when preserved, is 
one of the greatest ornaments of the Play. Though a moral 
degenerate of a coarse and sensual nature, the usurper is 

[379] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET activ. 

delineated as physically graced with commanding qualities, 
which make him a strong man among strong men. Recalling 
his unvaried kingly bearing and forceful command of re- 
spect; his cunning and discerning mind, which is quick of 
judgment and rich in resources ; his ingratiating ease of man- 
ners and strange powers of fascination, by which he seduced 
the Queen and won over to his cause all save the Prince ; and 
lastly his fearlessness in braving the maddened Laertes and 
the roaring mob behind him : we see qualities that indicate, 
not a weakling, but a strong dramatic personality which is 
rendered still more formidable by an absolute possession of 
supreme power. Such a man is Claudius, and in his hands, 
the brave Laertes becomes henceforth the mere plaything of 
his will. 

STORMING THE PALACE 

After Laertes with his adherents had gathered a great 
concourse in the public square, he harangued them upon his 
fancied wrongs, and, having roused them to turbulent ex- 
citement, led them on, a roaring mob, to the royal palace, in 
the hope of intimidating the King into granting him immed- 
iate justice. At the wild commotion of the tumult without, 
the Switzers had quickly bolted every door, and stood on 
guard within; but the surging, roaring mob broke down 
every barrier, and forced their way into the very presence of 
the King. At the head was Laertes, who in the height of 
frenzy rushed with drawn sword before Claudius, shouting in 
angry words, "0, thou vile King, give me my father!" 

His very presence is sufficient to allay the alarm of the 
King. The thought that the much-dreaded conspiracy has 
resulted only in an open and harmless manifestation of anger 
in an excited but fickle mob, has brought relief and assured 
him of his safety. Thoroughly cognizant of Laertes' charac- 

[380] 



scene v. STORMING THE PALACE 

ter and his own influence over him, as well as of the helpless- 
ness of an unorganized mob in the face of his trusted troop- 
ers, Claudius maintains his royal dignity unnuttered, and 
greets him with fearless composure. The King's unruffled 
conduct and unimpassioned words urging calmness, not only 
surprise Laertes, but even rouse him in irritation to further 
expression of his anger. The King, however, remains undis- 
turbed, and commands Gertrude to release her hold upon 
Laertes. The Queen had lost self-possession, and from fear 
of violence on the part of the mad youth, had rushed between 
her husband and his aggressor, and seized the arm of the lat- 
ter to prevent his use of the sword. 

Claudius now proceeds to reason calmly with Laertes. 
He quietly assures him of the futility of any attempt against 
his royal person; "for a king is surrounded by such a body- 
guard of heavenly protectors, that traitors can only peep 
through their ranks, and get a distant view of the king, who 
remains beyond the reach of real harm." His words are 
based on the notion of the divine right of kings. It was a 
sentiment common in Shakespeare's day, and appears to have 
been held by the Poet himself. 

Laertes in open-eyed surprise is dumbfounded at the 
king's assurance, and his silence is broken only by the King's 
command to speak. His sole query is, "Where is my fath- 
er?" The death of Polonius, and its attending circumstances, 
as well as his hasty burial, had been kept a secret of the 
court: hence Laertes had no further knowledge than that 
based on floating rumors and suspicions. Claudius, however, 
in the consciousness that Laertes is subdued, changes front, 
and, interrupting the Queen, exclaims in bold ironical de- 
fiance. "Let him demand his fill." His defiance rouses 
Laertes to the fact that his anger has been cooling, and that 
his cause is slipping from him. To regain lost ground, he 

[381] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET activ. 

labors to inflame his wrath anew by more exaggerated and 
violent expressions than he used before : 

"I'll not be juggled with. To hell, allegiance! Vows, 
to the blackest devil! Conscience and grace, to the pro- 
foundest pit! I dare damnation. I'll be revenged." 

But Claudius knows his man, and sure of his power, again 
calmly questions him in sarcastic terms, "Who shall stay 
you ! ' ' The reply of Laertes is as feeble as was his threat to 
tax his resources to their utmost, and is utterly ignored by 
the King. 

Following up the advantage gained, Claudius begins to 
reason cooly with Laertes as a friend. Why in his wild de- 
sire for revenge, should he proceed indiscriminately against 
friend and foe? Is it just that in the blind torrent of his 
rage, he should act like a gambler who sweeps away the 
stakes, no matter whether the point is in his favor or against 
him? Laertes protests that his action is solely against his 
enemies. To his friends he will be faithful, and will even 
prove his friendship, as the pelican, at the cost of his life's 
blood. The pelican was a fabulous bird, which according to 
popular belief, was supposed to feed its young with its own 
heart's blood. As the legend was commonly employed to 
symbolize extraordinary love, it was naturally adopted in 
early Christian times as a sacred emblem, which fittingly 
bespoke the Savior's supreme love for man in the Holy Eu- 
charist. When, however, in the religious revolution of the 
sixteenth century, the sacrifice of the Mass was declared 
idolatrous, and prohibited under grave penalties by act of 
Parliament, the long established Catholic meaning of the 
symbol, which was well-known in the Poet's day, soon, under 
the influence of the new religion, fell into disfavor, and was 
supplanted by the vague meaning of self-sacrifice in general. 

[382] 



scene v. A DOCUMENT IN MADNESS 

Shakespeare's fondness for the symbol appears from his use 
of it in King Lear and Richard II. 2S 

Observing that the deep wrath of Laertes has been allay- 
ed, the King commends his good sense, approves him "a 
good child and a true gentleman," and offers to satisfy him 
with proofs, as clear as sunlight, of his own innocence of Po- 
lonius' death. Their conversation is interrupted by the noisy 
Danes without who, in making way for Ophelia, cry in loud 
voices, "Let her come in." 

A DOCUMENT IN MADNESS 

The action of Ophelia in this her last appearance is, in 
absence of stage directions by the Poet, a matter of conjec- 
ture. The role, as commonly enacted at the present day, has 
been described as follows: 

"Ophelia enters with her hair and whole figure entwined 
with chains of flowers; and in her thin outer skirt, she 
carries a mass of them. She advances slowly with the 
strange light of insanity in her eyes, sits down upon the 
floor, and plays with the flowers in a childish way, as she 
sings. Then she arises, distributes rosemary, pansies, 
fennel, columbine and rue, sings her last song, loiters a 
moment after her parting benediction, and runs out in a 
burst of mad laughter." 

The pitiful plight of Ophelia startles Laertes into voic- 
ing his deep sentiments of affection. Though his animosity 
towards the King in person has sensibly ceased, he again 
yields to thoughts of violence and resentment, and swears 
anew to revenge himself for her sad affliction. Never having 
understood the sister whom he so dearly loved, nor having 
known her real and deep affection for the lord Hamlet, he 
wonders why "a young maiden's wits" should be as frail 
"as an old man's life." Hence supposing her dementia to 

28 Lear III, 4, 77. — Rich. II, 2, 126. 

[383] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act iv. 

be solely due to her father's death, he concludes that love, 
when existing in natures most sensitive and refined like 
Ophelia's, causes reason to follow after the object beloved. 

Listless and regardless of her brother's words, Ophelia 
begins to sing mere fragments of old ballads, as her memory 
recalls them at haphazard from the long ago. Meaningless 
refrains were common to these old songs, as is seen from 
their frequent recurrence in many of Shakespeare's plays. 
The music of the refrain she sings, seems by association of 
phantasms, to awaken memories of her childhood, when she 
had often heard her nurse sing the same ballad to the hum of 
the spinning-wheel. Of the song itself, nothing save what the 
text affords, has come down to us. 

Whether in the distribution of flowers to the members 
of the court, Ophelia gave them out as they came to hand, or 
whether she chose a particular flower suitable to each person, 
is open to conjecture ; neither in the text, nor by any stage 
direction has the Poet left us any certainty. By a long estab- 
lished custom, however, which has become a fixed stage tradi- 
tion, Ophelia assigns rosemary to Hamlet, who is present to 
her imagination ; she gives pansies to Laertes ; fennel and col- 
umbines to Claudius ; and rue to the Queen and herself. On 
this passage, Hunter annotates: 

"Ophelia in unbalanced mind thinks of marriage; with 
it comes the idea of rosemary, and she addresses him who 
should have been the bridegroom, Hamlet himself, as her 
lover. She then feels her disappointment. Hamlet is not 
there, and she turns to another flower — the pansy, or heart's 
ease — as more fitting her condition; for the pansy is asso- 
ciated with melancholy." 

When the mind is unsettled, it is usual for some idea 
to recur which has been introduced at a critical period of 
one's life. Now when Laertes was warning Ophelia against 
encouraging the attentions of Hamlet, he urged her to con- 

[384] 



scene v. A DOCUMENT IN MADNESS 

sider them as trifling, and his love but a violet in the youth of 
primy nature. These words, imprinted on her mind in assoc- 
iation with the idea of Hamlet and her brother, are now re- 
called when she again converses with her brother on the 
same unhappy subject. Violets represent faithfulness, and 
they all withered, when her lover by the slaying of her father, 
had interposed a final obstacle to her union with him. 

The language of flowers is very ancient, and was to 
Ophelia, like to most young maidens, a fond subject of study. 
Rosemary is emblematic of remembrance, and was distributed 
and worn at weddings, as well as at funerals. The pansy is 
a symbol of thought, of pensiveness, and of grief. The daisy 
represents faithlessness and dissembling. Fennel designates 
flattery, or cajolery and deceit; and columbine, ingratitude; 
and these two flowers Ophelia befittingly presents to the 
guileful and faithless Claudius. Rue is a bitter plant with 
medicinal qualities, and was in folk lore a symbol of repent- 
ance. She calls it "an herb of grace on Sundays;" because 
the wearer when entering a church on that day, dipped his 
rue in Holy Water, which always stood within the portals, 
and blessed himself with it, in the hope of obtaining God's 
"grace" or mercy. "There's rue for you," she says to the 
Queen, and "here's some for me." The Queen, however, is 
to wear hers with a difference, that is, in token of repentance, 
while she will wear it in regret and grief at the loss of her 
father and her lover. In the distribution, the demented 
maiden is seen naively but unwittingly to choose the flower 
most suited to each person. 

In Ophelia 's deranged mind, thoughts of Hamlet and her 
father incoherently commingle. After singing "For bonny 
sweet Robin is all my joy," a line from a ballad of Robin 
Hood, she passes to another in memory of her father, and 
dwells with satisfaction upon the words, ' * They say he made 

[385] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET ACnv. 

a good end." The expression may seem meaningless to the 
uninitiated; but to the Catholic they are richly significant. 
Those, whose religion offers them no sacraments of the dying, 
have often been puzzled by the fact that Catholics, when 
dangerously ill, are so insistent in the call for the ministra- 
tions of a priest. On hearing of a friend's death, the first 
question which a Catholic eagerly asks, is "how did he 
die?" or "did he make a good end?" or "did he receive the 
last sacraments ? ' ' These are all one and the same question. 
The readiness is all. If the deceased, contrite of heart, was, 
in the confession of his sins, absolved from them by the 
power of the keys which the Savior entrusted to His Church ; 
if thus properly disposed, he received the Eucharistic Body 
of the Lord, the pledge of his salvation and future resur- 
rection ; and if he peacefully departed from this world, with 
the last sacred Unctions of Holy Church, his friends feel 
consoled in the hope, which greatly mitigates their grief, 
that, having died in the grace and friendship of God, the 
soul of the departed has found mercy at the tribunal of justice 
in the spirit world. This is well illustrated by the words of 
the ghost; Hamlet's father complained, not so much of the 
murder, as of the fact that he had been deprived of the last 
sacramental rites of Holy Church : 

Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin, 
Unhousl'd, disappointed, unaneled, 
No reckoning made, but sent to my account 
With all my imperfections on my head; 
0, horrible! 0, horrible! most horrible! 

Had Ophelia known the circumstances of her father's 
death, she would have felt more poignant grief; but her 
friends concealing them, sought to soothe her by the assur- 
ance that "he made a good end." This assurance with all 

[ 386 ] 



scene v. A DOCUMENT IN MADNESS 

that it means, she herself makes repeatedly the one element 
of consolation in her grief ; for though demented, she still is 
mindful of the Catholic doctrine of purgatory, and, accord- 
ingly, at the close of the ballad she prays that "God may 
have mercy" on her father's soul, as well as on "all Christian 
souls," and uttering the parting greeting, "God be with 
you," she departs from the scene, leaving all affected with 
pity and commiseration. 

Ophelia's sad condition had sensibly stirred Laertes to 
great affliction, and the King pretending to share his grief, 
attempts to soothe his feelings: let him summon his wisest 
friends to sit with him in council in the judgment of his 
griefs. Before them he shall lay the facts, and if they ad- 
judge him guilty of Polonius' death, he is ready to forfeit 
life and crown in atonement ; if guiltless, then Laertes should 
be patient ; since even then, he will cooperate with him in the 
work of his revenge. Laertes approves the design, but de- 
clares that even though the King be innocent, yet the secret 
cause of his father 's death and the denial of a public funeral 
with all the honors customary to his station, are grievances 
which in voices loud cry to heaven for redress and punish- 
ment. Claudius wisely admits the offense to be grievous, and 
laconically replies, "Let the great axe fall" upon the neck 
of the offender. That it would so fall upon Hamlet, the King 
had little doubt; but at present, he deemed it inopportune 
and even unwise to communicate to Laertes his secret plot 
upon the Prince 's life. He must in the meanwhile keep him 
busy in the proceedings of the proposed council, which, for 
one cause or another, he can protract for a few days, in the 
hope that the ambassadors who will soon return from Eng- 
land, shall testify to Hamlet's death. This fact assured, he 
can then secretly summon Laertes, and, summarily dispens- 
ing with further proceedings, satisfy his grievances and 

[ 387 ] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET activ. 

thirst for revenge by exposing to him, how in furtherance 
of his cause, he had justly inflicted the death penalty upon 
the murderer of his father. 



[388] 



SCENE SIXTH 



A SUCCESSFUL COUNTERPLOT 

By disclosing in a brief interlude the unexpected issue 
of Hamlet's cruise to England, the Poet's evident design 
is to keep his hero before our mind. Sailors enter hurriedly. 
One of them after greeting Horatio with the salutation, 
' ' God bless you sir, ' ' gives him a secret letter ' ' from the am- 
bassador that was bound for England." The prayer of the 
sailor, as well as that of Horatio, is one of the many little 
touches that indicate Shakespeare 's fidelity to traits of char- 
acter. In those ages of faith, it was the common practice not 
only in ' ' Merry England, ' ' but also throughout Christendom, 
to greet a friend at meeting, with a ' ' God bless you, ' ' and at 
parting, with a "God be with you." These little prayers 
were prompted by a living faith, and though still in use 
among devout Christians, have in our day given way to vari- 
ous inane expressions. 

The letter contains a graphic narration of Hamlet's 
strange capture by pirates and his safe return to Denmark. 
Those critics who assign Hamlet's delay of "revenge" to a 
defect of character, blame him for tamely submitting to be 
sent away when he should by all means have remained in 
Denmark to further the one purpose of his life. Hence, they 
prefer, in harmony with their theory, to imagine Hamlet's 
predicted undermining of the King's plot to consist in the 
mere altering of the secret letters and, so ignore his prear- 
ranged capture by a pirate ship: the latter, if admitted, 
would militate against their pet theory of Hamlet's inacti- 
vity and abandonment of self to fate. 

[ 389 ] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET activ. 

The incident of the pirate ship, though indeed a 
strange occurrence, is little noticed by critics of the subjec- 
tive school. As the event has, however, a marked influence 
upon the dramatic action, it merits some attention. The 
facts, though few, are clear; a so-called pirate ship over- 
takes the royal vessel and grapples with it; Hamlet alone 
leaps aboard the strange vessel; and instantly it cuts loose, 
and at once returns him safely to Denmark. The event thus 
briefly described, looks in itself so unusual and suspicious 
that, if occurring in real life, it would undoubtedly impress 
on every one the idea of collusion, and this idea is strength- 
ened, when all the circumstances are weighed, as well as the 
fact that the capture verified certain guarded remarks which 
Hamlet previously had made. Viewed in this light, the inci- 
dent appears as a prearranged counterplot — a theory which 
with no argument against it, is supported by such an accu- 
mulation of circumstantial evidence, as to beget, if not cer- 
tainty, at least the highest probability. 

What then was this counterplot ? Was it, as some assert, 
nothing more than the altering of the secret letters? Such 
an hypothesis appears untenable for several reasons. Know- 
ing that the thrust which killed Polonius was intended for 
himself, Claudius on the one hand felt assured that hence- 
forth his own life depended on Hamlet 's death. Hence, rich 
as he was in resources, quick of action, and thoroughly un- 
scrupulous, he resolved upon a cunningly devised plot to des- 
troy him. On the other hand, aware of the King's secret hos- 
tility and treacherous nature, Hamlet, alert, watchful, and on 
guard against any covert act, was all but certain that the em- 
bassy with sealed letters to the English monarch, was a perfidi- 
ous design by means of which Claudius hoped to accomplish 
abroad what he dared not attempt at home. His penetrating 
mind foresaw that, though even now under constant guard at 

[390] 



scene vi. A COUNTERPLOT 

Elsinore, his position would be far more dangerous on board 
a ship when in the hands of officers, acting under secret in- 
structions of the King; that, if he were unable to obtain 
possession of the secret letters, he would, on landing in Eng- 
land, be hopelessly in the power of Claudius ; that even were 
he successful with the letters, the spies might have secret 
oral orders for the English monarch, who in the dilemma of 
contradictory commands, would, in all likelihood, hold him 
a prisoner while awaiting further instructions from Den- 
mark: all these, Hamlet perceived were contingencies, any 
one or all of which might probably be verified; and, there- 
fore, it is not rational to assume that, in his customary fore- 
sight and caution, he would blindly walk into the trap of 
Claudius, make forever his sworn revenge impossible, and 
jeopardize his life by such an uncertain and dubious coun- 
terplot, as the mere possible substitution of the secret let- 
ters. What, moreover, militates most against the hypothesis, 
is the second scene of the last Act, wherein Hamlet himself, 
treating in full of the purloining of the secret letter and its 
substitution, makes it clear that it was not his prearranged 
counterplot. He expressly declares it to have been only an 
after-thought, a makeshift, which was forced upon him by 
stress of unexpected circumstances, as shall be explained in 
the proper place. 

What then was Hamlet's predicted counterplot? Clearly, 
it was one that engendered a manifest confidence of foiling 
the machinations of Claudius ; one that would without delay 
restore him to Denmark, and to his pursuit of evidence 
against the criminal ; one that prompted him, on hearing of 
the embassy from the King, to exclaim, "good," and again, 
"I see a cherub that sees them;" one that inspired him to 
confide to his mother the joy he felt at the certainty of suc- 
cess: "0, 'tis most sweet when in one line two crafts di- 

[391] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET activ. 

rectly meet." The counterplot, therefore, in which Hamlet 
rejoiced so much, because he felt absolutely certain of its 
success, should be one which, if executed, would verify his 
predictions ; but his prearranged capture by a pretended pi- 
rate ship alone seems to fulfill these conditions. In the text, 
he affirms that Claudius was marshalling him to knavery ; but 
let him proceed, he says, in his treacherous work ; his shall be 
the sport to delve beneath his mine, and hoist the engineer 
with his own petard ; and in the vision of actual success, he 
rejoices at the meeting of the two ' crafts,' each on its own 
crafty mission bent. 

Such a plot once decided upon, was with the aid of 
Horatio most easy of execution. Surely the Prince of Den- 
mark could with ease charter secretly a warship, or cruiser; 
the navy of Denmark, as well as its merchant marine, domin- 
ated the high seas in those times; and, moreover, the 
warships of prince Fortinbras were then at anchor in the 
port of Elsinore. With the ship in commission, Hamlet 
could, before leaving port, readily give minute instructions 
to its officers, and make his promises of rich rewards de- 
pendent upon their faithful execution. Such a plot ex- 
plains, not only his absolute confidence, which seems begot- 
ten of careful preparation, but also his surprising readiness 
and even glee at departing from the scene of his revenge, 
where interests dearer than life should naturally detain 
him. 

The text, by means of Hamlet's letter, briefly yet 
clearly exposes the successful execution of the plot. The 
vessel which overtook him was evidently not a real, but a 
pretended pirate ship. If pirates are highwaymen who sail 
the high seas in quest of booty; if their trade is to pursue, 
and by force of arms to overpower merchant ships, and 
after plundering them, to destroy or sell them at open mart : 

[392] 



scene vi. A COUNTERPLOT 

it appears surprising strange that in the present instance, the 
pirate ship simply grapples with its prey with the evident 
purpose of allowing Hamlet, who is on the watch, to leap 
aboard. That done, then instantly, forgetful of its pirate 
trade, it cuts loose, and, abandoning the royal ship and its 
rich booty without a fight on either side, retraces its course 
immediately, and bears the one desired prize back in safety 
to Denmark. The mystery, which surrounds the transaction, 
is cleared away by Hamlet himself, when he tells Horatio 
that they were, not piratical thieves, but thieves of mercy 
who knew what they were doing, for he was to do a good 
turn for them. Nothing further is manifestly wanting to 
show that the Prince 's capture by the pretended pirate ship, 
was the successful execution of his predicted counterplot. 

Hamlet 's letter to Horatio is necessarily couched in cau- 
tious and ambiguous phrases. If it fell into the hands of the 
enemy, it would compromise both his friend and the officers 
of the pirate ship. It was, however, sufficiently clear to 
one who was a sharer in the stratagem; and its chief pur- 
pose was to assure him of its success and to demand his imme- 
diate presence. He has words to speak in his ear that will 
strike him dumb. They are too grave and alarming to com- 
mit to writing, and so he reserves them for a private inter- 
view. He has actually in his possession documentary evi- 
dence which proves that his uncle sent him to England with 
the sealed positive order that he be murdered there by proxy. 



[393] 



SCENE SEVENTH 

IN SECRET CONFERENCE 

We now come to a remarkable and vivid portrayal of 
the king 's ingenious villainy. With crafty skill he forms and 
fashions Laertes to his nefarious will, as clay in a potter's 
hands. If in a former brief appearance, Laertes left a good 
impression, he now destroys it by actions which disclose his 
real character. Naturally impetuous, fiery of temperament, 
and ruled by passion rather than by reason, he reveals him- 
self, on returning from his libertine life in Paris, as indiffer- 
ent to noble ideals of honor and of justice, and willingly 
agrees to become the base tool of a crafty criminal. If, of 
the two conspirators, Claudius is the master villain, Laertes 
by his own suggestion of the use of poison, proves himself no 
mean adept in the ways of infamy. 

By forcing upon our notice the deep contrast between 
Hamlet and Laertes, the Poet in the present scene seems 
intent upon a further glorification of his hero. If the one is 
characterized by a love of truth, sincerity, virtue, justice, 
and of all that is honorable ; the latter in contempt of them 
all, enters ignobly into an alliance with falsehood, treachery, 
and crime. The whole scene is a strong sketch in black and 
white, in which the evil traits of Laertes, serve to illuminate 
all the more the nobility of Hamlet's nature. 

The curtain rises on the two conspirators in secret con- 
ference. The King is supposed to have narrated to Laertes 
what the audience knows well already: namely, that in an 
attempt at his life, Hamlet had in mistake slain Polonius. In 
consequence, Claudius claims the friendship and alliance of 

[394] 



scene vii. IN SECRET CONFERENCE 

Laertes ; since both are animated by the same purpose of re- 
venge. Laertes, however, can not understand why the 
King, even when impelled by his own safety, did not vindi- 
cate the law against so capital an offence. Claudius assigns 
two reasons : the one on the part of Hamlet 's mother, and the 
other on the part of the people. "The Queen lives almost by 
his looks," and, as a star can move only within its sphere, 
so was he held in check by her. On the other hand, "the 
general gender," or common people love him so highly that 
his faults seem graces in their eyes ; and any attempt to pun- 
ish or restrain him, would appear as so many injuries perpe- 
trated against his innocence and good qualities : to put gyves 
upon him was only to endear him to the people. 

Laertes in smothered feelings of disgust at the fears and 
weakness of the King, recounts his dual loss as motives for 
insisting on revenge, and in reference to his sister's perfec- 
tions, makes a beautiful allusion to an olden ceremony at the 
coronation of the Kings of Hungary. It was customary for 
the newly-crowned monarch to stand on the Mount of De- 
fiance at Pressburg, and unsheathing the sword of State, to 
extend it towards the four quarters of the globe, challenging 
the world the while to dispute his claim. Claudius in reply, 
protests that he is not a dull weakling to be branded with 
fear in face of danger ; and when, in the hope of speedy news 
from the ambassadors, he proceeds to offer proof, he is inter- 
rupted by the sudden entrance of a messenger with letters 
for the King and Queen from the lord Hamlet. 

In a refinement of irony, the letter to Claudius shatters 
his dream at the moment when he is gloating over the pros- 
pect of soon communicating to Laertes the news of Hamlet's 
execution. The letter, formal and diplomatic, informs him 
that Hamlet has returned alone to Denmark, and promises 
to recount to him on the morrow the occasion of his sudden 

[395] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET activ. 

and strange return. The King, surprised and startled, is 
scarcely able to believe his eyes, and in sheer bewilderment 
turns to consult Laertes. He, though equally lost in sur- 
prise, rejoices at the news; the prospect of challenging on the 
morrow the slayer of his father causes his heart to glow still 
more with its mad sickness for revenge. 

CONSPIRATORS 

After Hamlet had delved beneath the King's mine, and 
exploded it, Claudius nonplussed, was at sea regarding his 
next move; but hearing Laertes' implied challenge of the 
Prince, he instantly grasped at a new plot which it suggested 
to his mind so astute and quick in treachery. It is, he in- 
forms Laertes, a device which cannot fail, nor will it stir 
even a breath of suspicion or of blame in the mind of the 
mother, who must needs charge her son's death to a chance 
stroke in the play of fencing. Laertes without hesitation 
and without a scruple assents to the King's murderous de- 
vice, and, as Claudius expected, demands that he himself be 
the cause of Hamlet 's death. 

The King proceeds to explain how speciously he may 
arrange the desired fencing bout with Laertes. The Prince, 
though addicted to philosophy, was by no means lost in its 
study ; graced in kingly accomplishments and famed for skill 
with the sword, it was as "a courtier and a soldier" that he 
was "the expectancy and rose of the fair state." These quali- 
ties, and not his love for philosophy, won him popularity 
with the people. The King, therefore, relying on the Prince 's 
well-known accomplishments, reasonably expected to con- 
vince Laertes of Hamlet's jealousy. In feline cunning he be- 
gins to work upon the young man's vanity by exaggerating 
the common rumor of his prowess of arms, which, often re- 
peated in Hamlet 's hearing, had stirred his soul to envy. Of 

[ 396 ] 






scene vii. CONSPIRATORS 

all his accomplishments, Hamlet, he affirms, envied none so 
much as his skill with the sword, a skill which, though a 
"mere riband in the cap of youth," is, nevertheless, most be- 
coming to an aspiring youthful knight or courtier. To em- 
bolden Laertes, he further inflames his vanity and self- 
esteem by alleging new reasons for Hamlet's jealousy. With 
a mixture of truth and fiction he narrates how recently a 
Norman soldier, 29 reputed the flower of knight-errantry, 
had exhibited before the court at Elsinore a skill in horse- 
manship so rare, and military feats so wondrous as to sur- 
pass imagination. Upon Laertes proudly claiming acquaint- 
ance with this foreign knight, who is the acknowledged gem 
of the French nation, Claudius continued : ' ' Supereminent as 
he was, he surprised all by affirming that no one in France 
could match Laertes with the rapier." On hearing all this, 
Hamlet was so envenomed with envy that he often ex- 
pressed a desire for Laertes' speedy return that he might 
measure his swordly skill with him. 

As Laertes appeared slower than was supposed to catch 
at his purpose, the King, as a cunning tactician, suddenly 
changed the course of procedure. If formerly he labored, 
according to his interest, to smother the mad flame of Laer- 
tes' passion, it is now his interest to bestorm his calm of 
reason, and to rouse him anew to a fiery thirst for revenge. 
He begins by cunningly questioning the reality of Laertes' 
love for his father. Does he truly mourn his loss, or is his 
a painted sorrow, as of a lily-livered, heartless man? Such 
an unexpected question startles Laertes ; but the King satis- 
fied of his affection for his father, argues that love like all 

29 This "gentleman of Normandy named Lamond" is found to have been Due 
de Biron, Marshal of France, born about 1563, and executed in the Bastille 
by order of Henry IV, July 31, 1602. He had been sent by Henry on 
an embassy to the English Court in 1601. Of his wonderful horsemanship 
Chapman testifies in his drama, "The Conspiracy of Biron". He was well 
known to the English, many of whom served under him at Navarre. 

[397] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET activ. 

transient things has a beginning and an end; that nurtured 
and matured it dies in that which it feeds upon. "What he 
would do, he should therefore do quickly; in delay there is 
danger lest, his love growing remiss, his will should in pro- 
portion weaken in its "native hue of resolution and lose 
the name of action." Moreover, the recognition of a duty with- 
out the will to perform it, enfeebles our moral nature. Idle is 
the all too late sigh of the spendthrift for his squandered 
estate: his sigh of regret is a bitter-sweet which "hurts by 
easing." Allusion is evidently made to a popular belief of 
the Poet's day, that every sigh drew blood from the heart, 
and in consequence shortened life. The King ceases reason- 
ing, and instantly challenges Laertes : Hamlet has returned. 
Shall you be longer satisfied with empty words? "What dare 
you do to prove yourself the worthy son of Polonius ? 

' ' Cut his throat in the Church, ' ' was the prompt and im- 
passioned reply of Laertes. His libertinism is manifested in his 
readiness to invade sacrilegiously the sacred rights of asy- 
lum, which approved by laws both civil and religious were 
maintained by the sanction of severest penalties. The King, 
however, still more irreligious, finds it to his interest to ap- 
prove Laertes' mad resolve on the equivocal plea that no 
sacred asylum should " sanctuarize " murder; and this plea 
he bases on another false principle that revenge has no re- 
straints. His remarks, uttered while he himself, a criminal, is 
actually plotting to escape punishment, surprise us by their 
forceful irony. 

His words disclose his hypocrisy : he knew full well that 
Hamlet did not murder Polonius ; he knew full well that the 
Church did not ' ' sanctuarize ' ' murder ; but that in the cause 
of justice, she opened her sanctuaries for a limited period to 
a refugee, whether innocent or guilty, when pursued by mob 
violence or by personal animosity, in order to allow time for 

[398] 



scene vii. CONSPIRATORS 

the first heat of resentment to pass away, before the injured 
party should seek redress. 

The right of asylum did not originate with the Church : 
it existed long before among Jews and pagans. The law of 
Moses ordained that several cities be designated as places 
of refuge, whither a man who had killed his neighbor una- 
wares might flee for safety. 30 Again in ancient Greece and 
Rome, the more celebrated pagan temples offered to a real or 
supposed culprit a sacred refuge against pursuers. When the 
Church after a conflict of more than three centuries, had 
triumphed over paganism, and was for the first time recog- 
nized as a religious organization distinct from the secular 
power, her edifices were granted the same privilege, and 
became asylums still more sacred, not because they were 
edifices wherein Christians met for prayer, but because each 
church was a consecrated temple of God in which a Holy 
Sacrifice was daily offered to the Almighty, and which, 
moreover, like the historic temple of Jerusalem, was espe- 
cially sacred as the Holy of Holies, by reason of the ever in- 
dwelling presence of God in the Holy Eucharist. An example 
of the right of sanctuary, already prevalent in the fourth cen- 
tury, has come down to us in the celebrated case of Eutro- 
pius. As the minister of the emperor Arcadius, he rendered 
himself especially odious by many flagrant acts of injustice 
in the oppression of the people. When suddenly deposed 
from power, he fled, pursued by a furious mob to the cathe- 
dral church. Hearing the tumult, Saint Chrysostom entered 
the sanctuary. He beheld the fallen minister overcome by 
fear, clinging to a pillar of the altar, and the church crowded 

30 "Therefore I command thee that thou separate three cities at equal distance 
one from another, that one who is forced to flee for manslaughter, — for 
killing his neighbor ignorantly, if he be proved to have no hatred against 
him yesterday and the day before, — may have near at hand whither to 
escape : he shall flee to one of the cities aforesaid and live, that innocent 
blood, may not be shed in the midst of the land". Deuteronomy, XIX. 

[399] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET activ. 

with a maddened throng, which in threatening violence 
wildly clamored for his death. The saint by a masterful 
oration in defence of the sacred rights of sanctuary, not 
only pacified the fierce mob, but also moved it to pity for 
the abandoned and defenceless culprit. 

The right of sanctuary continued a recognized institu- 
tion throughout Christendom during the middle ages, and, in 
those troubled times, while the feudal system prevailed, 
proved most beneficial. If sometimes abused, as all good 
things are, it was, nevertheless, most frequently a protection 
to innocent parties when oppressed or pursued by private 
enmity under the name of law. "Sanctuary" was well 
known to Shakespeare. Only recently it had been destroyed 
by Henry VIII. when he seized consecrated churches and 
monasteries to enrich his favorites — the new upstart nobles 
of his own creation. Later, when all Catholic Churches were 
seized by the ' ' Reformers ' ' and devoted to the new religion ; 
when altars were pulled down, and sanctuaries desecrated 
and despoiled ; when the sacrifice of the Mass, and the Real 
Presence were by law declared idolatrous; " Sanctuary, ' ' of 
course, became at once an anachronism of other and happier 
times. Its last lingering vestige was abolished under King 
James. In the church at Beverly and at Hexham, are still 
pointed out the refuge which had been constructed beside 
the High Altar, where those fleeing to the peace of the 
Church were held to be guarded by all its sanctity. 

TRIPLE KNAVERY 

As soon as Claudius was sure of his willing tool, he ex- 
posed his plot in full particulars. But first he insists — that 
Laertes, "keeping close within his chamber,' ' must deny him- 
self to the Prince; for he fears that a meeting will bring an 
explanation and a consequent reconciliation which shall nul- 

[400] 



scene vn. TRIPLE KNAVERY 

lify his strategy. In the meanwhile, he shall labor so to 
inflame the jealousy of Hamlet at Laertes' famed skill in fenc- 
ing as to provoke him to a contest for a royal wager before the 
public court. Presuming on Hamlet's noble nature, his 
well-known generosity, and freedom from guile and suspi- 
cion, he affirms that Laertes may easily choose without detec- 
tion, a deadly sword which, with its sharp point unbated or 
unprotected, will, in a treacherous pass of pretended practice, 
" requite him for his father." Laertes, however, not to be 
outdone in the villainous conspiracy, descends to deeper in- 
famy. Disclosing that, already actuated by the thought of 
poisoning, he had procured a deadly venom, he now proposes 
by means of it to make assurance doubly sure : he will anoint 
his sword with a poison so mortal in its nature that nothing 
can stay its dire effects; no, not even a poultice made from 
herbs which, gathered in the light of the moon, were popu- 
larly supposed to possess an unusual healing charm. 

The ready acceptance of the plot by Laertes, and his outdo- 
ing of the chief conspirator by the addition of another element 
of treachery, shows how little need there was for the King 
to proceed so cautiously in the murderous temptation. 
Though possessed of a mind far above the average in acute- 
ness, and though a practical man experienced in life, and a 
good judge of men, Claudius was obliged to take Laertes at 
his own valuation, and not at his true worth. His failure to 
read the youth's character aright, was due to want of suffi- 
cient knowledge. Never intimate with him as a youth, nor 
associated with him at court, because of his continued ab- 
sence in France, Claudius, both before and after the corona- 
tion, had little opportunity to discover the real character of 
the young courtier, and naturally mistook his loud vauntings 
of honor for true coin. Hence, he felt impelled to proceed 
with prudence and with caution in unfolding a murderous 

[401] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET activ. 

plot, which must appear most infamous to a man so appa- 
rently enamored of all that is honorable. He had yet to 
learn that this shallow youth of tinsel and of show was 
equally shallow in his notions of virtue and of honor; that 
his whole morality, rooted in the rocky soil of human respect, 
was a sickly plant, which soon wilted 'neath the burning 
rays of temptation. 

Claudius, though satisfied with the plot, fears its failure 
on Hamlet's part, or from the disclosure of its purpose by 
some blunder in its execution. Failure would expose him to 
even greater danger, and rather than that, it were better 
not to essay the project. Evidently his confidence in Laer- 
tes' superiority with the foils, is not assured; he knows of 
Hamlet's reputed skill and of his unflagging daily practice, 
and in consequence feels impelled by fears and doubts to 
safeguard his heinous design by the addition of a new ele- 
ment of treachery. Likely, it was suggested by Laertes' 
proposed use of the mountebank's poison. If the plot should 
fail from Hamlet's foiling by his greater skill the venomed 
thrust of Laertes, he will have at hand a poisoned chalice 
from which he will urge Hamlet to slake his thirst when 
highly heated by the violent action of the contest. Thus is 
their plot perfected and secured against possible failure ; but 
while gloating in fancy over its assured success, the conspi- 
rators are startled as their privacy is broken by the hurried 
entrance of an unexpected visitor. 

The Queen hastens forward with marked emotion and 
exclaims in impassioned words : 

' ' One woe doth tread upon another 's heel, 
So fast they follow. Your sister's dead, Laertes." 

Dazed at her words, Laertes can utter but one or two excla- 
mations of surprise. The Queen's description, which indi- 

[402] 



scene vn. TRIPLE KNAVERY 

cates that the drowning was accidental, is not only pictures- 
que, but also so remarkable in vividness and clearness of 
detail as to suggest the improbable, that she herself was an 
eye-witness of Ophelia's death. On the river-bank was a 
willow which from the looseness of the soil hangs outward 
aslant the stream, and its green leaves, silvery on the under 
side, are reflected in the glassy waters. Hither came Ophelia 
with fantastic garlands of orchis, buttercups, and daisies, 
and, as she clambered to hang her "coronet weeds" upon 
the pendent bough, it broke and with her and her flowery 
trophies fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide 
and for a time bore her up, while like a mermaid she chanted 
snatches of old songs. But soon, her garments water-soaked, 
the poor maid singing like a dying swan went down to 
muddy death. 

Of the Queen's grief, a critic says: "She was affected 
after a fashion by the picturesque mode of Ophelia's death, 
and takes more pleasure in describing it, than any one would 
who really had a heart. Gertrude was a gossip, and she is 
gross even in her grief." 31 The description is poetical rather 
than dramatic, and gives rise to certain doubts. Is it ficti- 
tious or real? Did the Queen or any other person witness 
the catastrophe ? If so, why was no attempt made to rescue 
the slowly drowning maiden from the little brook? Clearly 
there was no witness of the sad affair. The description there- 
fore is a fabrication, It is impersonal and studiously em- 
bellished with such poetic circumstances as are apt to soften 
the calamity; hence its accidental nature is emphasized, as 

31 Of her description, Campbell says: "Its exquisite beauty prevails, and 
Ophelia dying and dead is still the same Ophelia that first won her love. 
Perhaps the very forgetfulness of her throughout the remainder of the play, 
leaves the soul at full liberty to dream of the departed. She has passed 
away from the earth like a beautiful air — a delightful dream. There 
would have been no place for her in the agitation and tempest of the final 
catastrophe. We remember that her heart is at rest, and the remembrance 
is like the returning voice of melancholy music". - 

[403] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act iv. 

well as the fact that, " incapable" or unconscious "of her 
own distress," Ophelia, garlanded with flowers and singing, 
went down to a painless death. The Queen had witnessed 
the very recent angry outburst of Laertes, knows his hostile 
feeling against her husband, and fears that the news of his 
sister's death will stir him to a new and greater passion for 
revenge. Hence, she deems it more prudent to break the 
sad news herself, and gradually, and as softly as possible. 
The scheme was successful ; for the description roused Laer- 
tes to thoughts and sentiments of grief rather than to anger 
and resentment. 

Laertes moved to tears at the graphic recital of his sis- 
ter's death, apologizes as a man for a woman's weakness, and 
departing affirms that his thoughts of fire would blaze forth 
in burning words, did not his tears of grief extinguish them. 
"Come, Gertrude, let's follow," says Claudius, " 'twas much 
a-do to calm his rage, and now I fear it will start again. Let 
us follow. ' ' 



| 404 



ACT FIFTH 
SCENE FIRST 

CHRISTIAN BURIAL 

From the death of Ophelia, we naturally pass to the 
scene of her burial. Without interrupting the action of the 
drama, her funeral serves as a brief respite for the audience 
before the breathless on-rush of the fast approaching and 
final catastrophe. The action is carried on by grave-diggers 
who by their grim humor and heartless indifference to the 
nature of their work, form a strong background to a scene 
wherein, by contact with most opposite extremes, the charac- 
ter of the hero is further luminously revealed. The weird 
humor of his philosophizing on life, the grave diggers and 
their gruesome moralizing, the funeral procession and the 
grapple in the grave, are all contrivances which make the 
scene a miracle of construction. It exhibits a remarkable 
change in Hamlet since his return to Denmark. No longer 
indulging in soliloquies, nor in expressions of weariness of 
life, nor in self -reproachful analysis of thoughts and feelings, 
he abandons with one exception the role of dementia, and, 
with the mists of melancholy slowly dissolving, discloses a 
new consciousness of power. It may be partly due to success 
in undermining the plot of Claudius and to the incriminating 
document in his possession, but more to a feeling which re- 
cent events have forced upon him — a feeling that he is in the 
hands of Providence. 

The scene opens with a dialogue between two grave-dig- 
gers, who with spades enter a church-yard to make a grave 
for Ophelia. The conversation of these clowns, the one a 

[405] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

sexton, and the other, a common laborer, is replete with a 
strange wit that never fails to awaken delight and merri- 
ment. Incidentally it reveals the Poet's diversified genius, 
which enables him to impersonate so naturally even rude and 
ignorant characters in their peculiar habits and modes of 
reasoning. The first clown, laughing in untaught wisdom at 
the learning of philosophers, flashes his ready wit at almost 
every stroke of the spade ; but, beneath it all is discernible a 
deep and solemn wealth of meaning. Though old, he is yet 
vigorous and bold of thought, and, in universal sweep of 
judgment, formulates principles which may or may not just- 
ify self-murder. In boastful words he prides himself upon 
his own avocation and the exalted dignity of his office. The 
works of other men, whether of stone or iron are all sure 
to crumble under the ravaging hand of time ; but the lowly 
edifices which he constructs shall, in defiance of the storms 
of ages, remain intact till the day of general doom. His 
sane philosophy enables him to perceive the difference be- 
tween substance and accident, between real and artificial dis- 
tinctions of social life ; for daily he sees exposed before his 
eyes the fact that all have from Adam the same common 
patent of nobility. 

The dialogue begins with a discussion concerning the 
justice of according Ophelia Christian burial. Supposing 
that she had wilfully sought her own fate, or doom, the sex- 
ton appeals to the canon of the Church which forbids the 
burial of deliberate and wilful suicides in consecrated 
ground. In those days, all Europe was either Jewish, infidel, 
or Christian; and the term Christian was synonymous with 
Catholic, for none of the many modern Christian sects had as 
yet been born. The sexton's opponent appeals in turn to 
the verdict of the ' ' crowner. ' ' The coroner was originally a 
royal official whose duty was to secure the property of sui- 

[406] 



scene i. CHRISTIAN BURIAL 

cides in forfeiture to the crown. His verdict was, as is 
evident from the text, that Ophelia, like any other Catholic 
in good standing with the Church, was entitled to Christian 
burial, either because her death was accidental, or, if wilful 
and deliberate, was due to her insanity: and one bereft of 
reason is according to the teaching of the Church, incapable 
of moral guilt in the violation of the Almighty's "canon 
against self-slaughter. ' ' 

The sexton still holding out, resorts to his own peculiar 
method of reasoning, whereby, as commentators commonly 
suppose, the Poet intended to parody an inquest held in his 
day on a certain Sir James Hales. His suicide in a fit of 
insanity was an admitted fact ; but at the inquest arose much 
quibbling as to the activity or passivity of Sir James in his 
own death. The Second Clown, impressed by the reasoning 
of the Sexton, states his positive opinion that, if Ophelia had 
not been of the aristocracy, she would have been excluded 
from consecrated ground. This opinion of the clown is not 
uncommon to Catholics of the ignorant, and unreligious type. 
Around them, they daily see the influence which wealth and 
power exercise in the world, and naturally conclude that the 
same forces invade the sanctuary and sway its ministers. It 
is a rash judgment born of ignorance or forgetfulness of the 
fact that the Church has always gloried in being the Church 
of the poor; that history shows her in unremitting warfare 
against worldliness in its triple form: "the concupiscence of 
the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of 
life ; ' ' that, consistent with her teaching, she reduces to prac- 
tice her precept of the brotherhood of man and the father- 
hood of God. She receives at her sacred altar the serf and 
the monarch on equal footing, just as they are in the sight 
of God. In reply to the clown, the sexton ironically depre- 
cates the fact that the world looks with more leniency upon 

[407] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

the drowning or hanging of aristocrats, than of their poorer 
and "even Christians." The term "even" or fellow Chris- 
tian contains an allusion to what has been noted above: 
namely, the professed and actual equality of all Christians 
in the eyes of the Church. 

Another error as palpable as the clown's is found in a 
recent edition of Hamlet, which we quote merely as a sample 
of the misleading notes which often ' ' illuminate ' ' our modern 
school editions of the tragedy. Commenting on the words 
"out of Christian burial," the author in wondrous simplicity 
affirms: "The Christianity of Shakespeare's day prescribed 
that one who ended his own life should be buried without 
service, at cross roads, and with a stake driven through his 
heart." How cruel and barbarous! How the young stud- 
ent's mind and heart must be stirred to rebellion against a 
religion which sanctioned a practice so inhuman and repul- 
sive. But is it fact or fiction? The Christianity of Shakes- 
peare 's day comprehended Catholicity, Anglicanism, and Pu- 
ritanism. Anglicanism was a new state religion established 
by law of Parliament; Puritanism was another new creed, 
but non-conformist and in opposition to the state religion. 
The charge, if made against the Catholic Church, is alto- 
gether false. The old religion, in which Shakespeare was 
born and raised, never ordained that "a suicide be buried at 
cross roads, nor that a stake be driven through his heart." 

The Church has always justly distinguished between cul- 
pable and inculpable suicides. To the latter class belong the 
insane, and to them, as to Ophelia, she accords all her sacred 
rites, as well as burial in consecrated ground; to the former 
class belong all who in sane mind wittingly and voluntarily 
violate God's mandate against self -slaughter. Such, because 
dying in rebellion against the Creator, she refuses to recog- 
nize as of her fold, and, therefore, takes no part in their 

[408] 



scene i. CHRISTIAN BURIAL 

burial. If from a popular standpoint there be crimes of 
darker hue than suicide, there is none other by which from 
a Catholic standpoint a man so utterly renounces his religion 
and his God. A common law, which was prevalent through- 
out Christendom in Shakespeare's time, held that one who 
encouraged and assisted another to commit suicide was guilty 
of murder as a principal. Though the willful suicide was 
denied Christian burial, his friends were free to bury him 
where and how they pleased, but not with the sacred rites 
of the Church, nor within her consecrated grounds. These 
were reserved solely for her true and faithful children. 

As Ophelia's corpse is, according to the coroner's in- 
quest, to receive Christian burial, her grave is to be made 
"straight." The words, "make her grave straight" have 
been a source of trouble to many commentators, merely 
from their ignorance of Catholic customs and practices. The 
words are clear to every Catholic, and they were no less so 
to Dr. Johnson who, though a Protestant, was known to have 
been remarkably well acquainted with Catholic doctrines and 
practices. Ophelia's grave in the church-yard was "to be 
made straight ' ' that is from east to west, or parallel with the 
church itself. According to a universal custom dating back 
to the earliest days of Christianity, Catholics are wont when- 
ever it is possible, to erect their churches facing the Orient, 
or the Holy Land in honor of the Savior, the Blessed Founder 
of their religion. In modern Catholic cemeteries, where 
there is no sacred temple, the Church erects in its stead a 
great cross which also faces the Orient, and round about it 
she consigns to their long sleep her faithful children, all 
turned towards the East, whence in their Christian hope of a 
glorious resurrection, they await the second coming of the 
Savior, their God and King. 

[409] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

UNEXPECTED VISITORS 

The Sexton having vanquished the Second Clown in a 
display of wit sends him to a neighboring tavern for a flagon 
of liquor. "Yaughan" is a Welsh name, and "go get thee 
to Yaughan 's," is probably a clown's gag in allusion to the 
tavern attached to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, or refers 
to some other well-known inn. At the departure of the 
clown, the sexton while continuing to dig, sings three stan- 
zas of a blundering version of a poem which in correct form 
is found in Tottel's Miscellany, a work current in the Poet's 
day. The clown's inaccurate version is intended to be non- 
sensical, and his interpolated O's and Ah's are expressive of 
his grunts at striking hard earth with the pickaxe or spade. 
Thus engaged in his work, the sexton fails to notice the 
presence of two strangers, who, in their passage through the 
church-yard, pause to listen to his song. 

Hamlet with Horatio is probably on his way to the 
royal palace for the visit promised in his letter. Though 
still intent upon obtaining tangible proofs of the crime of 
Claudius, he has since his one great blunder, come to resign 
himself altogether to the wiser guidance of Divine Provi- 
dence. Convinced, moreover, that he shall fall when strik- 
ing the avenging blow of justice, he frequently thinks of 
death. What is life to him? He has sacrified everything, 
and is even now ready to welcome death in the performance 
of his sworn task. Mastered by such thoughts, he wanders 
at ease in mind and heart among the dead, and seems to riot 
with true pleasure in thoughts and sentiments which are 
commonly unwelcome to humankind. When alone with the 
congenial Horatio, whose friendship is so grave and silent, 
he usually feels at peace, and unconsciously recurs to his 
native mental disposition. "As he naively pours out his 
thoughts, how little does Horatio answer ! He is a continent 

[410] 



scene i. AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR 

on which Hamlet can securely walk, the only domain in 
Denmark that is not honeycombed with pitfalls." 

Though of course ignorant for whom the sexton is fash- 
ioning that house of clay, Hamlet expresses to Horatio his 
resentment at the grave-diggers' insensibility to human feel- 
ings. He forgets that long usage has made them familiar 
with such scenes. Soon a skull is thrown out before him. 
Its sight engenders in his philosophic mind a train of solemn, 
but gruesome thoughts, which have been more fully devel- 
oped by a latter poet : 

"Look on its broken arch, its ruined wall, 
Its chambers desolate, and portals foul; 
Yes, this was once Ambition's airy hall, 
The dome of thought, the palace of the soul; 
Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole, 
The gay recess of Wisdom and of Wit 
And passion's host, that never brooked control; 
Can all saint, sage, or sophist, ever writ, 
People this lonely tower, this tenement refit?" 

(Childe Harold, Canto II. VI.) 






That skull, Hamlet tells Horatio, which a clown "now 
overreaches" might have been "the pate of a politician," 
whose life was spent in overreaching his fellowmen. Shakes- 
peare, no doubt, speaks in irony of the politicians of his day, 
for whom he had no love, because of their overbearing char- 
acter and "insolence in office;" in consequence he always 
uses the term as synonymous with plotter and schemer, a 
man of craft and artifice who stops at no mean contrivance 
in the attainment of his dishonorable ends. Such men, he 
concludes in disgust, "would circumvent God." Was the 
Poet in clearness of vision prophetic in his words ? This tribe 
of politicians has under modern forms of government, multi- 
plied more than ever in demagogues who, unsatisfied with 
the things of Caesar, would usurp also the things that are of 

[411] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

God. Hence aiming to destroy the spiritual power that 
makes for man's higher good, they would exclude the Crea- 
tor from his own universe, and, ignoring the spiritual ele- 
ment of the citizen, treat him merely as a more or less devel- 
oped animal, whose whole being they would dominate in 
soul as well as in body. The thought of such irreligious de- 
magogues or politicians attempting "to circumvent God,'* 
prompts Hamlet to exclaim: " Here's a revolution, if we had 
the trick (skill) to see it." Truly their presumption and im- 
piety, born of self-sufficient pride, are humbled in the dust 
when we see their offensive "mazzards knocked about with 
a sexton's spade." Though Hamlet be absorbed in these 
reflections, he is not oblivious of his one supreme purpose, 
for the specific allusion to Cain's fratricidal crime discloses 
that the foul murder of his father by a brother still pos- 
sesses his mind. 

A TRIAL OF WIT 

While thus communing with Horatio, Hamlet observes 
another skull thrown from the grave, and, in a new turn 
of thought imagining it to be a lawyer's, asks in irony : "why 
he suffers this rude knave to knock him about the head with 
a dirty shovel," without entering action for assault and 
battery. He delights Horatio by his playful satire upon the 
subtleties and quibbles of the lawyers of his day. Shakes- 
peare's frequent use of law terms and of allusions to legal 
processes, has led commentators to agree with the opinion 
of Malone that he was for a time a clerk in the office of a 
Stratford attorney. 32 

32 Quiddities mean subtleties, and is from quidditas, a term common to scholastic 
philosophy, and signifies the nature or essence of a thing. Quillets stands 
for quibbels; battery is to beat one unlawfully; recognizances are bonds 
acknowledging money lent on lands; indentures are duplicate copies of a 
contract given to two parties. They are called indentures because the 
perforated parchment, being torn into two pieces, had irregular indented 

[412] 



scene i. TRIAL OF WIT 

Hamlet thus far had limited his conversation to Hora- 
tio, but from growing interest in the busy sexton and espe- 
cially from curiosity to know for whom he is making the 
grave, he decides to speak with him. He, however, in mani- 
fest surprise at the wit of the clown, finds him ' • an absolute 
knave" with whom he "must speak by the card," or with 
precision. In fact, his tilt with the sexton is not the least 
enjoyable of his encounters nor the easiest of his victories. 
In a battle between a lion and a fly, insignificance is often 
apt to have the best of it. But in this trial of wit, the 
Prince 's patient courtesy is eventually an overmatch for the 
sexton's shrewdness and supremely aggravating impudence. 
The caustic old churl absolutely forgets his caustic disposi- 
tion beneath the calm unruffled smile of him "that was 
mad and sent into England." The clown in his tilt with 
Hamlet, indirectly gives us positive data for settling the 
mooted question concerning the precise age of the Prince. 
As we have already 1 fully entered into the subject, we shall 
merely note in passing that the grave-digger's words are 
most explicit and clear: assuming the office of sexton "on 
the very day that Hamlet was born," he had retained it ever 
since for thirty years. By such explicit and positive proof, 
the Poet places his hero's age beyond all reasonable ques- 
tioning. 

The clown continues digging and soon throws up another 
skull at Hamlet's feet. Upon further questioning, the Prince 
discovers that it is Yorick 's and, taking it in his hand, turns 
to address Horatio. Yorick, the Danish Jorg or George, was, 
it seems from the text, the king's jester at the court of the 

lines, and the genuineness of either part was attested by each fitting exactly 
with the other. Conveyances were deeds which prove one's legal right to 
land; assurances meant untainted security for the transfer of lands. 

Hamlet puns upon the word "fine" in its fourfold meaning: payment at the 
close of a lawsuit: a given process in law; elegant or refined; and. lastly, 
small or pulverized. 

1 Vide— Part I, C. VII, p. 51. 

[413] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

elder Hamlet, and had died when the Prince was in his sev- 
enth year. The latter remembers well his many gambols 
with the jester, and his "songs and flashes of merriment ;" 
but now the sight of the skull stirs his imagination to such 
abhorrence that his ' ' gorge rises at it. ' ' He apostrophizes it, 
exclaiming: "Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell 
her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor she must 
come." Vanity of vanities and all is vanity. His words 
do not now refer as formerly to Ophelia in particular but to 
womankind in general. There were only two women whom 
Hamlet had really loved. But his idols proving false had 
shattered his fond dreams, and left him a sceptic concerning 
all others of their kind. This third reference to the femi- 
nine use of cosmetics reveals Shakespeare's strong aversion 
for the practice. As a close observer of men and affairs, he 
had many occasions to witness its abuse, and especially in his 
plays before the court of Elizabeth. He had never seen the 
Queen in her prime ; and when at her expressed wish to wit- 
ness Falstaff in love, he wrote The Merry Wives of Windsor, 
she was verging on her seventieth year, and bore the sad 
marks of withering age. But, long accustomed to adulation 
the most fulsome and extravagant, her appetite for praise 
grew with her years, and she exacted to the end the same 
homage to her faded charms as had been paid to her youth. 
Hence all were careful to express their admiration of her 
beauty in language of oriental hyperbole. When she appeared 
in public, as at Shakespeare's plays at court, she attired 
herself most magnificently "on the supposition that, being 
dazzled by the glittering aspect of her outward ornaments, 
spectators would not so easily discern the marks of age and 
decay of nature and beauty." 33 On these occasions, "she 
was painted not only all over her face, but her very neck and 

33 Ellis 2nd, ser. iii, 191, apud Lingard's "History of England", Vol. VI, p. 657. 

[414] 



scene i. TRIAL OF WIT 

breast also." 34 This practice of the Queen was of course fol- 
lowed from courtesy, if for no other reason, by her many 
female attendants ; and the custom once established at court 
grew apace in the outer world. Hence Shakespeare was true 
to facts, when Hamlet, who represents his thoughts and senti- 
ments more than any other character, railed at the dames 
of fashion in the words : ' ' God has given you one face, and 
you make yourselves another. ' ' 

Passing from "my lady" to philosophize upon the vanity 
of human life, and power, and glory, Hamlet reflects that 
even an Alexander or an "imperious Caesar" must, like all 
mortals, come to this humiliating corruption of the grave : 

"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 
Awaits alike the inevitable hour: — 
The paths of glory lead but to the grave." 

The base use to which may be put all that remains to us of 
the greatest worldly heroes, appears to Hamlet's mind to em- 
phasize in the concrete the truths of Divine Revelation, 
which are too often recognized only in the abstract. The 
grave covers the mighty and the proud with supreme 
humiliation. Man from the first revolted against his Creator, 
and many since, mentally intoxicated by the fumes of power, 
or honor, or affluence, or learning, or liberty and independ- 
ence, have said in pride-inflated folly, "there is no God!" 
— "man is God!" But stern truth was soon forced upon 
them by the Angel of Death, whose avenging arm nothing 
can stay: neither power, nor fortune, nor genius, nor love, 
nor sorrow, nor happiness, nor despair. Recognizing no 
distinction of persons, Death is stirred by no sentiment, in- 
fluenced by no interest, moved by no pitying supplication, 
and barred by no earthly force. Death puts in their place 

34 Ms. letter January 13, 1602, apud Lingard, ibidem. 

[415] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET ACTV. 

the men of science who, vainly glorying in their knowledge 
of the universe, foolishly ignore its Creator; the men of 
exalted station who, in the sottishness of power, abuse it 
against their f ellowmen ; all, Death crushes, and humbles in 
the dust, and makes them feel that they are only creatures 
of fragility, corruption, and worthlessness, and that the Crea- 
tor alone is Lord and Master of the universe: thus Death is 
destined to restore the moral order when disturbed by moral 
evil. 

OPHELIA'S FUNERAL 

Hamlet is roused from his moralizing by the near ap- 
proach of a procession, in which he sees the King and Queen 
with attendants following a corpse. He withdraws some dis- 
tance from the grave to watch the proceedings. Filled with 
surprise, he is curious to discover ' ' who is this they follow ? ' ' 
Horatio fails to answer ; he knows that Hamlet, just returned 
to Elsinore, is ignorant of Ophelia 's death, and fears that his 
intense love for her may rouse a slumbering passion that 
would bring him into conflict with Laertes. At the silence of 
Horatio, Hamlet conjectures that ''the maimed rites" indi- 
cate the corpse of a Suicide. The word "maimed" seems an 
interpolation which was made by some one who was less 
acquainted with Catholic rites than Shakespeare, for, as will 
be shown, the funeral rites of Ophelia were in no manner 
"maimed." It was most likely introduced here to excuse 
and even to give some verisimilitude to a greater corruption 
of the text which was to be made later in the abusive words, 
assigned to Laertes against the officiating priest. 

In the following text, Laertes, always so fond of show, 
senselessly creates a scene by shamefully attempting to brow- 
beat an innocent and unoffending priest. If, like a veritable 
Bombastes Furioso, he stirs to applause all who are prejud- 

[416] 



scene i. OPHELIA'S FUNERAL 

iced against the Church and her ministers, he moves, on the 
other hand, the more wise and judicious to frown in disap- 
proval upon his unjust and uncalled-for conduct. The two 
opposite classes of spectators are well exemplified in two 
critics, the one English, and the other American. The latter 
writes : 

"This choleric stripling, whose heart was in Paris; who 
cowers before a 'king of shreds and patches/ yet bullies 
an irresponsible and discretionless priest; who had even 
more than the full fraternal indifference to his sister until 
she lost her reason and her life; this small Hector must 
now make a scene over her dead body. And such a scene! 
His plunge into the open grave is unworthy of the mounte- 
bank from whom he bought the mortal unction: his invo- 
cation enough to madden any onlooker. All that palpable 
rant, all that sham despair, all that base mortal thunder, 
in the holy grave of the unpolluted girl!" (A Review of 
Hamlet: George H. Miles.) 

Far different writes the English critic. His commentary 
shows him to be animated by a blind prejudice that impels 
him to mar his pages by aspersions which are in contradiction 
to the doctrines and practices of the Church. He says: 

"To Ophelia's funeral the Church reluctantly sends her 
representatives. All that the occasion suggests of harsh, 
formal, and essentially inhuman dogmatics is uttered by 
the priest. The distracted girl has by untimely accident met 
her death; and, therefore, instead of charitable prayers, 
'shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her.' 
These are the words of truth, of peace, of consolation, 
which religion has to whisper to wounded hearts.' ' (Dow- 
den's Shakespeare, his Mind and Art, page 136.) 

These sentiments regarding the Church and her ministers 
are too often shared by readers and auditors of the play, 
either from prejudice, or from a want of careful study of the 
text, or from ignorance of the Church's doctrines and prac- 
tices, which they are satisfied to learn from wholly unreliable 

[417] 






THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

mediums, as the theatres, rather than from credible and ortho- 
dox sources. While reserving the above aspersions of the 
critic for a later refutation, we notice for the present that 
each of his &ve assertions is based on an error either expressed 
or implied. This shall be clearly manifest, if our modern com- 
posite text be examined in its relation to Catholic rites and 
ceremonies : 

Laertes. What ceremony else? 

First Priest. Her obsequies have been as far enlarged 
As we have warranty ; her death was doubtful ; 
And, but that great command o'ersways the order 
She should in ground unsanctified have lodged 
Till the last trumpet; for charitable prayers, 
Shards, flints and pebbles should be thrown on her. 
Yet here she is allowed her virgin crants, 
Her maiden strewments and the bringing home 
of bell and burial. 
Laertes. Must there no more be done? 
First Priest. No more be done. 

We should profane the service of the dead 
To sing a requiem and such rest to her 
As to peace-parted 1 souls. 
Laertes. Lay her i'the earth; 

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh 
May violets spring. I tell thee, churlish priest, 
A ministering angel shall my sister be, 
When thou liest howling. 

This citation with its manifest interpolation contains 
three assertions which to every Catholic are evidently er- 
roneous. The first is that doubtful suicides are denied Chris- 
tian burial, the second that the priest at the King's com- 
mand violated the laws of the Church, and thirdly, that 
the chant of a requiem for the repose of the soul of 
a doubtful suicide is a profanation of holy rites. In 
refutation, it is only necessary to consider the ordinations of 
the Church concerning the burial of suicides as well as her 
unwavering practice. 

1 Peace-departed, an expression common to Catholics which signifies that 
the dying person departed in peace with God, fortified in faith and hope 
in His mercy, by means of the last sacraments of the Church : sacramental 
confession, the Holy Eucharist, the Extreme Unction. Of his privation 
of these sacraments, the ghost of Hamlet's father had bitterly complained. 

[418] 



scene i. RITUAL SERVICE 

THE CATHOLIC RITUAL SERVICE 

The Church reserves exclusively her consecrated ceme- 
teries for the interment of her own accredited members who 
die, as far as may be known, in the friendship and grace of 
God. All others are excluded ; over them she claims no juris- 
diction, nor legislates for them, nor has aught to do with their 
burial. Concerned only with her own children, she reasonably 
distinguishes between culpable and inculpable suicide. If 
one of sound mind deliberately commits self-murder, he 
knows that thereby he wilfully places himself beyond her 
pale, and renounces his right to Christian burial; such sui- 
cides never occur among her faithful children. But if one 
takes his own life, while bereft of reason, she considers him 
inculpable; and just as the civil and criminal courts do not 
inflict punishment upon one that violates the law, if he be 
proven insane, so neither does the Church decree spiritual 
penalties against a suicide whose dementia made him incap- 
able of a rational act in the material violation of the moral 
law of God. Accordingly, barring such an unfortunate from 
none of her sacred rites, she buries him with all the honors 
of a faithful child. 

If such be the action of the Church in relation to culp- 
able and inculpable suicides, what is her conduct towards a 
self-destroyer whose moral culpability is in doubt? The 
question involves a twofold possibility: either the perfect 
sanity of the man is admitted and the doubt exists only con- 
cerning the manner of his death, whether accidental or self- 
inflicted ; or again, self -slaughter may be an evident fact, but 
a positive doubt may exist regarding the sanity or insanity 
of the man. In either case, the Church first seeks to remove 
the doubt, and if this be impossible, and if the individual was 
a faithful communicant, she in charity suspends her judg- 
ment, and as a loving mother gives her child the benefit of the 

[419] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

doubt, and accords him full Christian burial. With this com- 
mon and unvarying practice of the Church in mind, no one 
can fail to notice the several errors of our modern composite 
text in regard to the burial service of Ophelia. 

The text moreover contains a marked discrepancy. In 
the previous Act, the Queen had testified that Ophelia's 
drowning was accidental, in the present Act, the sexton as- 
serts it to have been wilful, and, in consequence, questions 
her right to Christian burial. His view may be safely assumed 
to have been the common opinion outside the court. He is, 
however, assured by the assistant grave-digger on the strength 
of the coroner's verdict, or warrant; and what this warrant 
was we learn later from the priest officiating at the funeral, 
when he says : ' ' We have warranty : her death was doubtful. ' ' 
That is, the coroner and his jury could not agree whether 
Ophelia wilfully drowned herself or not, and, therefore, rend- 
ered a verdict which left the question in doubt ; and acting on 
this doubt, the Church accorded Ophelia Christian burial. 
Here then, in the words of the grave-diggers, and of the coro- 
ner's jury, and of the priest, we have sufficient evidence that 
none of them was aware of Ophelia's insanity. Were it other- 
wise, the manner of her death would have been merely an 
incidental matter; for her dementia, if known to these three 
parties concerned, would at once have established her positive 
and undoubted right to Christian burial. Her insanity, like 
her father's death and hasty burial, was, it would seem, kept 
a secret within the royal court, and carefully guarded from 
the general public; hence the sexton, coroner, and priest 
being ignorant thereof, each based his action, not on Ophelia's 
insanity which would have given her a greater and positive 
right to Christian burial, but on the less and incidental ques- 
tion of the doubtful manner of her death. 

Ophelia was, however, according to the text, buried in 
[ 420 ] 



scene i. RITUAL SERVICE 

consecrated ground, and, in consequence, not with " maimed 
rites. ' ' Interment in consecrated ground is the essential point 
in Christian burial, and, where that is granted, all accidental 
rites and ceremonies are also accorded without restriction. 
Hence the text leads non-Catholics into error, if they be unac- 
quainted with the funeral service of the Church. They do not 
know that the corpse which, in the case of a young maiden, is 
robed in white, and crowned with flowers in token of her in- 
nocence, is first borne to the House of God, and placed before 
His sacred altar, where the mourners join in spirit with the 
priest who, attired in the sacred vestments of his office, begins 
a Requiem for the repose of the ' ' peace-departed soul. ' ' This 
Holy Sacrifice is commonly called a "Requiem," because of 
the first word of the liturgical prayer of the Mass. 35 They 
do not know that after the "Requiem" the priest standing 
before the corpse, gives the last solemn absolution and bless- 
ing of the Church, and, as is often customary, addresses the 
mourners in such words of consolation as only the true Chris- 
tian religion can inspire, words of divine faith and hope 
based on the assurance of God Himself: "I am the resurrec- 
tion and the Life, he that believeth in me shall not see death 
forever. ' ' 

The corpse is next borne to the cemetery or sleeping 
ground of the Christians, which has been specially consecrated 
by the Church. If the funeral be that of some functionary 
of State or of the royal household, the priest with his attend- 
ants accompanies the cortege to the cemetery, and, standing 
at the open grave, solemnly blesses the corpse, and pronounces 
over it the last prayers of Holy Church. This prayer con- 
cludes the funeral services, and all the mourners depart in 
the silence of deep sorrow. It was at this moment that Laertes 
ruthlessly interrupted the solemn scene, and rudely shocked 

85 "Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis". Ps. 64. 
Roman Missal. 

[421] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

the retiring mourners. In ignorance of the Church's ritual, 
he accosted the priest in unbecoming tones, and demanded 
further impossible ceremonies — impossible — because none 
further are prescribed by the Church. He should have known 
that her ministers are not allowed to improvise new rites and 
ceremonies. 

Such is the funeral service of the Church, and such was 
Ophelia's, notwithstanding the errors of the text. In brief, 
Ophelia's "doubtful death" entitled her to Christian burial, 
and such, in the words of the Poet, she received when interred 
in "sanctified grounds." Her quasi-royal funeral, unmarred 
by "maimed rites," was adorned with all the solemn cere- 
monies which accompany interment in consecrated ground. 



A CAPTIOUS CRITIC 



These facts and principles considered, a mere statement of 
Dowden's calumnies will suffice to show that, though they 
may be true when applied to some church of the critic's own 
creation or imagination, they are altogether false when di- 
rected against the real Catholic Church. Pass we now to his 
charges seriatim. He writes : 

"To Ophelia's funeral the Church reluctantly sends her 
representatives. ' ' 

This is not true ; the Church does not send her ministers 
reluctantly to funerals such as Ophelia's; but, on the con- 
trary, they attend by virtue of their office, and perform the 
funeral service as prescribed in her ritual ; and, therefore, the 
text is in error, when it says that the priests performed the 
service at the King's command. A royal mandate was un- 
necessary, and, if given, was superfluous ; for, according to the 
words of the priest, Ophelia's "death was doubtful," and in 
such a case, as already shown, Christian burial is accorded. If 

[ 422 ] 



scene i. A CAPTIOUS CRITIC 

the maiden had not been entitled to the funeral rites of the 
Church, no king's command could have conferred the right, 
and it would have been disregarded, because an unwarranted 
intrusion. The Church is not an annex of the State, but a 
spiritual Kingdom, free, independent, and supreme within 
her own religious domain; and, therefore, while inculcating 
obedience to the temporal sovereign in all things mundane, 
she does not admit his supremacy in affairs religious or spirit- 
ual. Her action is guided by the divine axiom, which affects 
both Church and State alike, "Give to Caesar the things that 
are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." The 
second charge is: 

"All that the occasion suggests of harsh, formal, and es- 
sentially inhuman dogmatics, is uttered by the priest." 

There is no question of "dogmatics" at Ophelia's fune- 
ral, but merely of rites and ceremonies which are subject to 
legislation of the Church. Whatever harshness there is, arises 
from the rudeness and ignorance of Laertes, which prompts 
him to overstep the ' ' bounds of modesty ' ' and decorum. The 
words of the priest, who after all is human, are perhaps ex- 
cusable, because of the resentment which an ignorant, bluster- 
ing, and irreligious stripling aroused in him by his impudence 
and insistent impossible demands. 

"The distracted girl has by untimely accident met her 
death." 

Here, the critic, pronouncing his ipse dixit in contradic- 
tion to the Poet, holds Ophelia 's death to have been accidental, 
notwithstanding the fact that the sexton, coroner, and priest, 
all to the contrary, affirm it to have been doubtful. But it 
matters little ; in either case, the Church grants full Christian 
burial. A critic, however, if he would be rational and just, 
should judge according to the knowledge and circumstances 

[423] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act 



. 



which dominate the agent, rather than by some imaginary 
assumption of his own. 

li Instead of charitable prayers, ' Shards, flints, and peb- 
bles should be thrown on her'." 

This sentence contains an implied error ; namely, that the 
priest, instead of offering charitable prayers, threw 'shard, 
flints, etc,' upon Ophelia's grave. The text expressly states 
that he did not do so; but, to the contrary, gave her ''charit- 
able prayers" ; and they are copious in the Church's dirge and 
Requiem for the dead. True, the priest affirms, when impu- 
dently taunted by the stripling, that, though "shards, flints, 
etc." are thrown upon the graves of wilful suicides, yet, be- 
cause Ophelia's death was doubtful, the Church instead ac- 
corded her Christian funeral rites : a Requiem, a tolling of her 
bells, and attendance of her ministers, as her corpse with 
"virgin crants," or garlands borne before it, is carried in pro^ 
cession "amid strewment of flowers," to her last long home 
for religious burial. The fact is, considering Laertes' igno- 
rance of religion and his indifference to its precepts, as ex- 
emplified in his known libertinism, he should have been, 
among the many mourners, the very last to mar the solemn 
scene by a foolish exhibition of himself in senseless and im- 
possible demands. The critic lastly remarks : 

" These are the sacred words of truth, of peace, of con- 
solation which religion has to whisper to wounded hearts." 

These words prove beyond doubt that the critic never 
witnessed the Church's ritual for the dead. All who have, both 
Christian and infidel, have been surprised and deeply moved 
by its impressiveness. In bland-like innocence, he mistakes 
for a part of the ritual, the well-merited rebuke which the 
priest administered to the irreligious and obtrusive youth. 
We wonder what are "the sacred words of truth, of peace, 

[424] 



scene i. A DIFFICULTY 

of consolation" which unbelief, agnostic or infidel, "whispers 
to wounded hearts. ' ' The grave, they affirm, obliterates man ; 
and, therefore, their "whispered words of consolation" can 
be naught but a chilling message of appalling gloom and 
never-ending despair. Not so, however, with the Christian; 
he knows by the light of Divine Faith that the present life is 
but the vestibule to a brighter world; that death is but the 
portal through which the Christian, on abandoning his domi- 
cile of clay, is ushered into his real home of eternal bliss. 
The Church, because divinely commissioned, can with authori- 
tive voice speak the inspiring and consoling truths of "the 
Light of the world." Standing amid the mourners beside 
the open grave, she can arrest their tears by God's powerful 
promise: "0 death, where is thy victory? death, where 
is thy sting?" 1 she as none other soothes wounded hearts when, 
in "words of truth, of peace, of consolation," she proclaims 
with God-given assurance, that "death is swallowed up in 
victory" ; that her children "shall not see death forever" ; that 
they but sleep the sleep of the just until the grand awakening 
to bliss and glory in a joyful resurrection at the second com- 
ing of their king. 

A DIFFICULTY 

From Dowden turn we to a more important topic. The 
errors of judgment which our modern composite text ascribes 
to the priest appear very grave when we consider that he is 
supposedly well-acquainted with his official duties, as well 
as with the Catholic ritual for funeral service. These errors 
must of course be ultimately charged to Shakespeare. But 
how shall they be accounted for? There are but two alter- 
natives : either the text is corrupt or the Poet is in error. If 
the latter be assumed, a difficulty of no small moment stares 
us in the face. If Shakespeare, as is well-known, was familiar 

1 I. Cor. 15. 

[425] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

with Catholic tenets and practices in minute details ; if often 
touching in his numerous dramas on the Church's doctrines, 
sacraments, and ceremonies, he is remarkably free from the 
many blunders which blemish the plays of contemporar;y 
dramatists; and, if, even on the subject of "evening Mass," 
which to modern Catholics must seem incredible, he is also 
correct, because in harmony with the prevailing custom in 
Verona, shall we say that he commits an error in a matter 
as simple as Ophelia's funeral? 

Such a supposition is scarcely admissible ; and from it we 
turn to the other alternative, the corruption of the text. It 
is here important to recall what we have shown. 1 that no 
certainty exists regarding the genuineness and integrity of 
our modern reading, since it differs much from previously 
existing manuscripts and prints. It is, however, certain that 
the original edition of the Tragedy of Hamlet, published in 
1603, gives the play as it was enacted by Shakespeare and his 
company in the Provinces and in the universities of Oxford 
and Cambridge in 1601, and in London in 1602-3. In it the 
text runs as follows : 

Laertes. What ceremony else? say, what ceremony else? 

Priest. My lord, we have done all that lies in us, 
And more than well the Church can tolerate, 
She hath had a dirge sung for her maiden soul; 
And but for favor of the king and you, 
She had been buried in the open fields, 
Where now she is allowed Christian burial. 

It will at once be noticed that these six lines of the 
original text have grown into thirteen in our modern ver- 
sion, that it makes no reference to a "warranty" or verdict of 
doubtful suicide by a coroner's jury, that they contain 
neither the second speech of the priest nor the three grave 
errors and contradictions of our composite text, It merely 

1 Vide p. 297. 

[426] 



scene i. A BOISTEROUS SCENE 

asserts that the priest had by kindly toleration sung a "re- 
quiem" for Ophelia's maiden soul, and granted her Christian 
burial. All this is in strict accordance with the law and prac- 
tice of the Church. The priest from want of evidence and 
from ignorance of Ophelia's actual insanity, as already shown, 
was unable to form for himself a fixed judgment regarding 
her moral responsibility. Hence, accepting the common opin- 
ion of the court, he could favor the King and the bereaved 
family by granting Christian burial, as the Church in charity 
allows in such circumstances. 

Thus we see that the original text of Shakespeare, though 
in full accord with Catholic law and practice, becomes later 
by an interpolation full of errors. In fact, the words which 
our modern composite text assigns to the priest, are in clear 
contradiction to his official action at Ophelia's grave. The in- 
terpolator was probably an actor, who alone, as was cus- 
tomary, possessed the acting manuscript of his part, and, who, 
unlike Shakespeare, was in absolute ignorance of the common 
ritual of the Church. The addition was likely prompted by 
a desire to make room for Laertes' abuse of the priest. Such 
abusive words were welcomed and highly applauded at that 
time when open and persistent persecution was waged against 
the olden Church, and when dramatists, except Shakespeare, 
were accustomed to pander to the popular prejudices of their 
audiences. In short : either our modern composite text, which 
is far from perfect, is here corrupt, or Shakespeare, who in 
all his works proves himself most familiar with things Catholic, 
must be supposed to have blundered here for the first and only 
time in the most simple and obvious practice of the Church. 
Such a supposition Shakespearean critics will be slow to enter- 

tam ' A BOISTEROUS SCENE 

The Queen disregarding Laertes' evil words and desirous 
of interrupting his unbecoming outbreak, advances with at- 

[427] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

tendants to the edge of the open grave. She had really 
loved Ophelia and sincerely mourned the untimely loss of the 
maiden whom she had come to look upon as the future spouse 
of her only and darling child. Strewing flowers upon the 
coffined clay, her eyes glistening the while with welling tears, 
she utters in grief-broken voice her last words of parting, 
words, which, sincere as her sorrow, are beautiful and affect- 
ing : ' ' Sweets to the sweet ; farewell ! I thought to have decked 
thy bridal-couch, sweet maid, and not to have strewed thy 
grave. ' ' The present portrayal of the sensible grief and true 
affection of Gertrude, who in other relations exhibits a na- 
ture unrefined and callous to sentiment, reveals the Poet's 
masterful knowledge of character and keen insight into the 
mixed motives of human passions. 

The solemn and affecting scene, instead of allaying the 
excitement of Laertes, only stirs him to a more violent out- 
burst. Strong men, when overcome by grief, give it little 
external expression; and the more manly the man and the 
deeper his grief, the more it preys inwardly upon his mind 
and heart, and so acutely as to stifle all external womanly 
manifestation. But the grief of the shallow Laertes seems 
not to have been of this nature. The memory of his long 
neglect of his sister, of his abandoning her to the lonely and 
dull prosaic life with her aged father, while he selfishly pur- 
sued a gay life in a distant metropolis, was no doubt an im- 
pelling motive for his loud expression of sorrow. When death 
steals away a beloved friend, the survivor feels awakened in 
his heart a deeper affection than was experienced before, and 
with it comes a keen sorrow and regret that he had not been 
kindlier and more loving. These thoughts and sentiments 
exercised a strong influence upon Laertes, and urged him to 
atone for his indifference to his sister's company by an un- 
manly show of grief which found expression in turgid words 
and boisterous exaggeration. 

[428] 



scene i. A BOISTEROUS SCENE 

No sooner had he heard the Queen's utterance of the 
name of Hamlet, than he starts in phrenzy to call down curses 
on him for his wicked deed — a deed which he knows was not 
wicked, because not culpable, but accidental. With loud 
words, driving back the sexton, who had begun to fill up the 
grave, he leaps therein, and continues his rant before the 
astonished gathering. 

Still ignorant of her dementia and accidental death, 
Hamlet was unaware that the funeral was Ophelia's. He had 
stood apart from the throng, and was with Horatio merely 
an idle but interested spectator. When, however, he heard Laer- 
tes utter the word, sister, in the abuse of the priest, he ex- 
claimed: "What, the fair Ophelia!" Hurriedly he pressed 
forward to hear the evil imprecations of the youth, and break- 
ing through the crowd of mourners, stood beside the open 
grave. Laertes still continued in boisterous words his tragic 
show of grief. His ranting violence of words and action, Ham- 
let felt was little less than empty noise — a rude mockery — and 
a desecration of solemn religious rites. It sufficed to conjure 
up the memory of his own true love, and of the wrongs which 
that ranting brother had done Ophelia and himself: he had 
calumniated him and his honest love; he had blighted her 
young heart; he had neglected her until she was beyond his 
care when, returning at his father's death, he found her hope- 
lessly insane. Strongly agitated by impassioned feelings of 
love, grief, and anger, Hamlet, still standing at the margin 
of the grave, and glancing now at the casket and now at 
Laertes, questions in earnest tones of keen irony the reality 
of his unseemly and overdone show of mourning: "What is 
he whose grief bears such an emphasis, whose phrase of sor- 
row conjures the wandering stars and makes them stand in 
listening wonder?" Then, before the royal court and the 
crowding mourners, he exclaims to Laertes, "this is I, Ham- 

[429] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

let the Dane!" the well-known lover of the dead maiden, a 
lover whose affection exceeds a brother's by all measure. 
With this he leaps into Ophelia's grave, there to brave the 
exaggerated grief of her brother. 

Surprised at the Prince's sudden action and angered at 
his taunting words, Laertes grapples with him, and curses 
him, — curses are frequent on his lips. Though thus openly 
cursed and grasped by the throat, Hamlet, nevertheless, pre- 
serves in the tussle a determined calm, and only seeks to shake 
off his assailant. With wondrous self-control and in cool ex- 
postulation, he warns Laertes not to rouse him to anger, lest 
he crush him by his conscious power. This sudden and strange 
encounter over the corpse of Ophelia, throws the court and 
mourners into great commotion. The King in excited words 
commands attendants to pluck the combatants asunder; the 
Queen in stress of grief loudly calls upon her son ; and even 
the staid Horatio urgently pleads with his friend. 

A CHALLENGE 

The sudden realization of Ophelia's death, awakened in 
Hamlet that love which he thought he had sacrificed to his 
sacred duty of " revenge". At its awakening, gone was his 
philosophic calm; gone was his firm resolve to maintain self- 
restraint: anger, which was measured by his love, had 
shrivelled up all scruples; had broken down the ramparts of 
respect and prudence; had called forth the first cry of his 
love that ever reached the ears of others. Else it would have 
lain buried with Ophelia in the silence of her lover's breast. 
In an overpowering sense of that reawakened passion, he 
braves debate. He will fight with Laertes upon the theme of 
love, until his eyelids will no longer wag. His mind and heart 
aglow, he proclaims a brother's puny love to be naught, when 

[430] 



scene i. A CHALLENGE 

compared with the magnitude of his own. Its intensity over- 
tops that of "forty thousand brothers." 

Claudius, observing Laertes' anger and abashment, seeks 
to soothe his ruffled feelings by exclaiming : " 0, heed him not ; 
for his madness quite undoes him." The mother also pleads 
with him, for the love of God, to forbear her son in his afflicted 
state. But Hamlet, heedless of their words, continues in 
scornful contempt to denounce Laertes' rant. He challenges 
him by the Savior's sacred wounds to come to action instead 
of words. In homely phrases full of derision, he dares him to 
deeds most extraordinary and repulsive in proof of his love. 
His words glow with the fire of passion, which alike quickens 
his imagination, and in withering terms he addresses him: 
' ' Show me what thou wilt do ; wouldst thou weep, fight, fast, 
and tear thyself? Wouldst thou drink up eisel? 35 eat a 
crocodile? I will do it. Dost thou come here to whine? to 
outface me with leaping in her grave? Be buried alive with 
her, and so will I." 

On this passage, Miles comments beautifully as follows : 

"What can be juster, what can be grander! Mortal love 
and manly scorn were never strung before or since to such 
sublime intensity. The foot of true love lies on the pros- 
trate sham love, like the foot of Michael on Lucifer; though 
here the angelic brow is flushed and ruffled with the rage of 
combat. Over the dead maiden stands the doomed lover, 
proclaiming his full faith before assembled Denmark in 
tones whose echoes, ringing down the aisles of death, must 

3 5 The word Eisel has been a bone of contention among annotators. Some think 
it probably the river Yssel which is a northern branch of the Rhine, and 
nearest to Denmark; others hold with Theobald that "Eisel" means 
vinegar. The evidence in favor of this interpretation lies in the sense of 
the text, which manifestly suggests some pungent and disagreeable drink, 
corresponding to the repulsive flesh of a crocodile. Eisel in this significa- 
tion appears in the one hundred and eleventh sonnet of the poet: 
' 'Whilst like a willing patient, I will drink 
Potions of "eisell", 'gainst my strong infection; 
No bitterness that I will bitter think, 
No double penance to correct correction". 
Again, the word is found in a prayer of the "Salisbury Primer" of 1555, as 
follows: "0 blessed Jesu .... I beseech Thee for the bitterness of the 
'aisell* and gall that thou tasted, etc." 

[431] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

have conveyed to her ransomed soul and reillumined mind 
the dearest tribute of mortality to perfect the chalice of 
spiritual bliss. That sweet face on the threshold of another 
sphere, must have turned earthward awhile to catch those 
noble, jealous words." (A Review of Hamlet.) 

Before the vehemence of that grand passion, Laertes 
wilts. Before the assembled mourners, he stands in pitiable 
silence, exposed, abashed, and discomfited. His is the helpless- 
ness of the wren beneath the rapacious swoop of the eagle. 
His rebuke was merited, and his discomfiture is an illustration 
of the supremacy which a nature, ennobled by intellectual 
and moral worth, may wield over a man, made ignoble by a 
life of pleasure and frivolities. 

"This is mere madness," exclaims the Queen. Her son's 
passionate vehemence of word and action had prompted 
her, in maternal solicitude, to come to his defence. True to 
her promise to maintain his simulated madness, she urges it in 
excuse of his wild conduct. As Lady Macbeth, to reassure 
the peers, had said : 

"Sit, worthy friends; my lord is often thus, 
The fit is momentary; upon a thought 
He will again be well ; ' ' 

so the Queen affirms: "Awhile the fit will work on him; but 
soon he will brood in silence, as the patient dove over her 
golden downy couplets." 

His mother's words recall Hamlet to himself. In calm- 
ness of tone but in words of reproach, he remonstrates 
with Laertes. He had loved him ever, and, therefore, cannot 
comprehend the cause of his anger, curses, and attempted 
violence. It does not occur to him that Laertes sees in him 
the slayer of his father and the cause of his sister's dementia. 
Of the latter, he is still ignorant ; and of the former, he feels 
in conscience guiltless. Philosophizing, however, on the 
cause, his words are prophetic as regards the conspirators. 

[432] 



scene i. A CHALLENGE 

Men are what they are, and will act accordingly: as the cat 
mews by nature, and the dog bays, so a man, by nature 
choleric, splenetic, and impulsive, will rush rashly into actions 
which "cannot but make the judicious grieve." 

On Hamlet's sudden departure, Claudius, in fear of fur- 
ther trouble, earnestly entreats Horatio to follow and wait 
upon him. Then turning to the Queen, he pleads that she 
look to her son, and set some watch upon him. He next 
addresses Laertes. Reading upon the face of the crestfallen 
and sullen youth how terribly his vanity had been lacerated, 
he comforts him, and urges him to strengthen his patience by 
the thought of the conspiracy which shall be carried out at 
once. In words enigmatic to the Queen, he assures him that 
the living Hamlet shall by his death be a monument to his 
sister's grave. The scene concludes as the King, at the 
thought of Hamlet's speedy death, shares his hopes with 
Laertes that 

"An hour of quiet shortly shall we see; 
Till then, in patience our proceedings be." 



[433] 



SCENE SECOND 

A PRIVATE CONFERENCE 

Hamlet, having hurried away from the scene of the late 
disturbance, was overtaken by Horatio. Both made their 
way to the royal castle where they held a secret conference. 
There were several important incidents that had happened 
during the Prince's absence, such as the dementia and death 
of Ophelia, and these, because already well-known to the 
audience needed no exposition. But to Hamlet they were new 
and of supreme interest; hence Horatio gives him the full 
particulars as he had gathered them. The narration finished, 
the curtain rises as Hamlet exclaims : "So much for this sir ; 
now shall you see the other," that is, he will now give a cir- 
cumstantial account of his own adventures in the interim, as 
he had promised in the letter: "Repair thou to me with as 
much speed as thou wouldst fly death. I have words to speak 
in thine ear that will make thee dumb." 

He begins the story with events of his second night at sea. 
After setting sail from Elsinore at nightfall, he had neither 
during that night nor on the following day, caught sight of 
the pretended pirate ship, which according to his plot, was to 
pursue, overtake, grapple with the royal vessel, capture him, 
and restore him again safely to Denmark. As it had not over- 
taken them in the more narrow waters of the Baltic, it was 
less likely to do so now that the royal ship was swiftly cours- 
ing in the broad expansive waters of the North Sea, Hence, 
fears and doubts perplexed his anxious mind. Perhaps, after 
all, his "deep plot had palled;" perhaps, the pirate ship in 
the darkness of the night was unable to follow in their track 
and had swerved from its course; perhaps, it was stayed in 

[434] 



scene ii. A PRIVATE CONFERENCE 

port, because some minion of the King had betrayed the plot. 
Whatever the cause of failure, he perceived his great peril. 
He knew that the main and secret purpose of the specious 
embassy, was to rid Denmark of his presence. Now, helpless 
on the open sea in the power of royal officers, the willing tools 
of an unscrupulous and villanous king, he felt increasing 
fears that the secret letters meant his perpetual imprisonment 
in England, if not his immediate execution; in either case, 
as surely as he set foot on English soil, his sacred cause 
would be lost forever. Often through the day had he with 
anxious eye scanned the horizon to catch a glimpse of the 
longed-for pirate ship, but with the passing of the second 
night his last ray of hope was swiftly vanishing. Was the 
"smiling villain" to outwit him? Was the bloody usurper to 
dye his soul still deeper by the perpetration of another secret 
murder ? Were all the sacrifices he himself had made for the 
purpose of his sworn "revenge," only to prove him in fine a 
miserable ingrate, recreant to duty and to the memory of a 
loved and honored father? Such thoughts racked his being 
to its very depths, as restless upon the couch he lay : ' * in his 
heart there was a kind of fighting that would not let him 
sleep." Fears and doubts, as well as an actual sense of im- 
minent peril, roused his brain to feverish activity. In wild 
imagination he lay a helpless prisoner, like a mutinous sailor, 
his limbs shackled with Bilboan fetters. Within him, his soul 
cried aloud for action; but his sense of inability of exertion, 
his sense of utter helplessness, tortured him with an over- 
powering pain, which drove him to despair, and despair 
"rashly" drove him to an "indiscreet" performance. 

How Hamlet stole the secret packet, he graphically tells 
Horatio, and in the narration reveals the refinement of his 
moral nature; though the letters were a treacherous design 
upon his life, and their seizure warranted by right of self- 

[435] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

defence, he, nevertheless, pleads in excuse the fact that the 
breaking of the royal seals was not a human act, since prompt- 
ed, not by reason, but by over-mastering fear. He further 
informs Horatio of the royal knavery disclosed in the usur- 
per's command for his immediate execution, and also the 
peculiar reasons by which Claudius hoped to induce the 
English monarch to comply with the ''exact command " of 
the sealed death-warrant. It required that without the least 
delay Hamlet's "head should be struck off." One cause al- 
leged was that the good of England, as well as of Denmark 
demanded the death of the Prince ; other reasons were a med- 
ley of "bugs and goblins," that is, bugbears or fantastic 
dangers and gross distortions of the actual facts of his life. 
There can be little doubt that a fratricide, so vilely criminal as 
Claudius, resorted to false charges, in order to win the English 
king to his cause, especially when he deemed the crown, as 
well as his own life endangered by the continued existence of 
the Prince. To Horatio, surprised and apparently incredu- 
lous, Hamlet hands the telltale document for leisurely perusal 
in proof of his words. He had been earnestly seeking tangible 
evidence of the villain's guilt, and here at last was one which 
would help him to justify before the citizens of Denmark, his 
impending stroke of "revenge." 

He next proceeds to narrate how, when "be-netted round 
with villainies," he, in self-defence, and not from malignity, 
devised his supplementary plot; how in jubilant confidence 
of his ready wit, he penned that secret conjuration to the 
English king. His action, he asserts, was under stress of 
circumstances, sudden and without thought or reflection. Be- 
fore he could consider what was to be done, his mind, com- 
pletely aroused by impending perils, had in fiery activity 
shot forth flaming thoughts, which formed instantly a scheme 
of action ; and these winged burning thoughts ' * had begun the 

[436] 



scene ii. DIVINE PROVIDENCE 

play," before he could devise even an introduction. The 
scheme, therefore, came impromptu; it was an inspiration 
which like a sudden ray of light banished perplexing darkness. 
It was so rich in ingenuity, that, completely fascinating him, 
it impelled him, under a strong impulse of imagination 
rather than of will, to write out the substituted commission. 
It was an easy matter, because of his skill in penmanship, a 
skill which he had "labored much" to forget; since he had 
come to think with statesmen of the day, that ' ' to write fair ' ' 
was a baseness in them, though an accomplishment in their 
underlings. His skill, however, now served him well in enab- 
ing him to counterfeit the hand of Claudius. As he found the 
royal document assigned many reasons for his execution, so 
he prefaced the new mandate with many a whereas, such as 
might induce the tributary king to execute the spies without 
delay. 

Hamlet recognized his subsidiary plot as a divine inspira- 
tion. He saw Heaven's ordination in the fact that he had 
on his person his father's signet ring, the very one after 
which that of Claudius had been fashioned. With the royal 
seal affixed to the spurious document, nothing more was want- 
ing for the completion of the scheme, and he calmly awaited 
results. On the next day, after all hope had been abandoned, 
the pretended pirates overtook them and grappled with the 
ship. As soon as he had leaped in their midst, they instantly 
cut away, as prearranged, and, leaving the royal vessel to 
continue on its course to England, hastened back and landed 
him safely in Denmark. 

DIVINE PROVIDENCE 

After mature reflection upon these incidents, Hamlet 
comes to see more than ever the interposition of Divine Prov- 
idence in the affairs of men. In self-reliance, he had boasted 

[437] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

that he would ' ' delve one yard beneath their mines, and blow 
them to the moon;" in self-reliance, he had gone forth with 
the enemy upon the cruise to England, confident of rescue by 
the counter stratagem of a pirate ship; but when his "deep 
plot" apparently had failed, and left him helpless, like a 
fettered prisoner in the throes of despair, the scheme which 
flashed upon his mind, without thought or effort of his own, 
he now recognized as a Divine inspiration. It brought him 
what he had so long and eagerly desired, — a positive and 
tangible proof of the murderer's guilt. His death-warrant, 
written by the hand of the King, and bearing the royal seal, 
was beyond dispute a convincing proof. The precious docu- 
ment he entrusts for safe-keeping to Horatio, because of the 
presentiment of his own speedy death. It will justify before 
the world the avenging blow which he is soon to strike. It 
will unmask the seeming virtuous villain, and consign him to 
everlasting infamy. 

Hence, with a sense of thankfulness for the unexpected 
proof which he procured solely by the intervention of a higher 
power, he openly professes his faith in the guidance of divine 
Providence : 

" There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
Rough-hew them how we will." 

His conclusion is approved by his fellow student of philosophy 
with the emphatic reply, "that is most certain." Both agree 
that our rashness or indiscretion sometimes serves us well 
when our deep plots do fail. Had not the pirate ship failed 
to overtake the royal vessel on the appointed day, Hamlet on 
that eventful night, when in mental conflict between hope and 
despair, would not have been blessed with the happy inspira- 
tion of purloining the secret letter of the King, and of sub- 
stituting a counterfeit; nor would he have returned with the 
original to Denmark, armed with the first visible and most 

[438] 



scene ii. DIVINE PROVIDENCE 

absolutely damning proof against the secret criminal. This 
happy intervention of a higher power, which inspired and 
aided him to turn his failure to success, is now so clearly seen 
that, henceforth, he appears more disposed to rely upon its 
guidance than upon his own unaided efforts. 

The metaphor, to shape our ends, some say, is borrowed 
from the making of skewers; but a comparison so feeble and 
undignified appears unworthy of the grandeur of Hamlet's 
thought. Far preferable is the opinion which detects in the 
figure a reference to sculpture. Common artisans may rough- 
hew a block of marble into the general shape of the statue 
required; but an artist's skill is further needed to chisel it 
into the distinctive shape of some individual human form. In 
the quarry of life, man, from the limitations of his knowledge 
and experience, can hew out his ends or purposes in the 
rough ; but he needs the aid of the Supreme Artist, — the 
great First Cause — Who, according to his good pleasure, 
shapes and completes them to their final and rational form. 
Divine Providence is the ordination and application of means, 
by which God leads his creatures to their destined end. To 
thwart or reject this guidance, is fatuously to risk the attain- 
ment of one 's destiny. Man is assured of this Providential 
guidance, if, in conformity with the will of God, he faithfully 
observe His divine law. 

In Hamlet, the Poet gives a dramatic representation of 
the free will of man under the governance or guidance of the 
Divine Will — a Will which subordinates in some mysterious 
and incomprehensible manner all human actions and events to 
the accomplishment of purposes often inscrutable to the human 
mind. When, under stress of circumstances, Hamlet had in 
vain exhausted all his powers of thought and reasoning to 
lift the veil of darkness which enveloped him, then a myster- 
ious Higher Power came to his aid, and, by the employment 

[439] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

of some seeming unimportant incidents, — means apparently 
"rash and indiscreet," struck the hour for immediate and 
proper action. Before his awakening to the guidance of this 
Higher Will, we have seen how, in the consciousness of his 
intellectual dexterity, he had delighted in his skill and re- 
joiced in the contemplated success of his counterplot. Its 
apparent failure, as well as the success of his secondary plot, 
are in harmony with the development of the drama • they are 
introduced, not to create surprise, but to unfold the character 
of the hero. For the overruling destiny, which he recognizes, 
rises above the tumult, and is represented, not as a cold re- 
mote power of marble majesty, but in intimate connection with 
human affairs: 

"Reckoning time, whose million 'd accidents 
Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings, 
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp 'st intents, 
Divert strong minds to the course of altering things." 

(Sonnets, CXV.) 

These lines read as a commentary on the fortunes of 
Hamlet, and should, says Professor Minto, be printed at the 
beginning of all copies of the play, both to emphasize the lofty 
vein of reflection developed by the Poet as the main effect of 
the whole, and to undo the wretched criticism that would make 
it a sermon against procrastination. 36 

Nothing is more remarkable in Shakespeare's plays, and 
nothing contributes more to make them a faithful image of 
life, than the prominence given to the influence of so-called 
chance, or of undesigned accidents. As a word, chance has 
always been, and always will be popularly accepted; and its 
use is correct in so far as we overlook or ignore, for the 
moment, the more universal connection of events. That the 
law of causation is universal in its reach, is maintained by 

36 Characteristics of English Poets. 

[440] 



scene ii. DIVINE PROVIDENCE 

science and religion; and all men practically act upon its 
assumption. It is strictly and philosophically true that there 
is no such thing as chance or accident; since these words do 
not signify anything really existing, anything that is truly 
an agent or the cause of any event; but they merely signify 
man's ignorance of the real and immediate cause. Most 
tragic events turn on most trifling circumstances. The fate 
of Richard II, is traced to a momentary impulse, — an impulse 
which cost him his kingdom and his life. Poor Desdemona's 
fate hangs on the accidental dropping of a handkerchief. 
The unhappy death of Romeo and Juliet result on the mis- 
carriage of a letter. The noble Caesar had not met his un- 
timely death, had he not postponed reading the schedule of 
Artemidorus. Wolsey fell from the full meridian of his 
glory by a slight inadvertence, which all his deep sagacity 
could not redeem. But of all the Poet's plays, the predomin- 
ance of chance over human designs, is most powerfully brought 
home in the tragedy wherein the fate of Hamlet turns on 
accident after accident. These fortuitous events are variously 
denominated, as Destiny, or Fate, or Chance ; but, in the poet- 
ical religion of Shakespeare, they are recognized as the direc- 
tion of a Providence that exercises supreme control over 
human affairs. To the Christian dramatist there can be no 
such thing as chance, and, accordingly, he expounds to his 
reader the same idea that has been expressed by a later Cath- 
olic poet in the words: 

"All nature is but art unknown to thee; 
All chance, direction which thou canst not see; 
All discord, harmony, not understood; 
All partial evil, universal good." 

Because of the error of several commentators, it is important 
to note that in Shakespeare's view, the guidance of a Higher 
Power or His intervention does not destroy man's free will, nor 

[441] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

ignore it, nor relieve him from the necessity of guiding his 
actions aright by the light of reason and the voice of con- 
science. Hence he places on the lips of the most detestable 
of his characters, Iago and Edmund, the strikingly distinc- 
tive truth that it lies in our free will to be or not to be what 
we are. Against sceptics and modern Reformers who hold the 
fatalistic view which disputes or denies freedom of will, 
Shakespeare unfailingly portrays man, not as the pagan 
dramatists of old — a hapless, helpless being who is subject, 
in spite of himself, to a fate, made inevitable by decree of the 
gods — but as a rational agent, who is the free architect of 
his own character and the arbiter of his destiny for good or 
for evil. 

Reverting to the text, we see that when the hero of the 
drama, by reason of the objective difficulties which surround 
him, is unable, notwithstanding all his efforts, to proceed to 
his ' ' revenge, ' ' a Higher Power leads him forward with scarce 
a suspicion of how surely and quickly he is reaching the goal. 
Accidental was the arrival of the players at Elsinore, yet 
they enable him to reach, for the first time, a positive convic- 
tion of the King 's guilt ; accidental was the slaying of Polon- 
ius, yet it is the turning point of the play, at which Claudius 
assuming the aggressive, is in spite of his cunning lured on 
to judgment; accidental was the delay of the pretended 
pirate ship, yet it led to another unpremeditated incident, 
the purloining of the secret letters, which gave Hamlet the 
only proof he could so far offer the public in justification of his 
"revenge." 

Of all these accidents, the killing of Polonius was the 
most important. Though it was a thrust in blind passion and 
a seeming blunder, the effects of which were completely hid- 
den from Hamlet, yet it was a most opportune and propitious 
act; for then, when most helpless, Providence stepped in to 

[442] 



scene ii. FATE OF THE SPIES 

direct him and to ripen his cause for victory. That blind 
stroke of passion, roused the criminal to action for his own 
safety, which he saw was involved in Hamlet's destruction; 
and to attain it, he proceeds from crime to crime, only, all 
unconsciously, to afford the Prince the long-desired public 
proofs which alone withheld him from striking the avenging 
blow of justice. At the present stage of the drama, Hamlet's 
cause is almost ripe for the final act ; another has made pos- 
sible a seeming impossibility. A Providence that never errs 
is guiding him freely, and shall use his willing arm for the 
execution of divine judgment. Under the higher guidance 
of this Providence, Hamlet himself feels that he has almost 
reached the goal: now, "the readiness is all." 

THE FATE OF THE SPIES 

At the conclusion of Hamlet's narration, Horatio, in 
commiseration for the spies, musingly remarks, ' ' so Guilden- 
stern and Rosencrantz go to 't ! " Their untimely fate resulted 
directly from perseverance in their course at sea. Their 
abandonment of Hamlet to the mercy of the pirates with 
apparent unconcern is indeed a matter of surprise. The 
officers of the royal ship were in duty bound to rescue him, 
bound to pursue the pirate craft, to seize it, or even to destroy 
it ; but this perhaps appeared impossible of achievement. If, 
when in flight at full speed, they had been overtaken by the 
pirates, there was little prospect of their overhauling the 
strange craft as it sped away with Hamlet ! In consequence, 
prudence seemed to dictate the continuance of their course 
with the hope that Hamlet when released would follow them 
to England. They had, moreover, to collect the long-delayed 
tribute money, and to deliver their secret commission to the 
king. 

With the foregoing is involved another question : name- 
[443] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

ly, how far the death of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern may 
be charged to themselves. It is clear, they believed their 
embassy to be to Hamlet's disadvantage. Their zeal cannot 
be excused by the sense of duty; the Poet portrays it as 
prompted by the baseness of their sycophantic, treacherous 
nature. By means of the court play, and later by repeated 
declarations of the king, it was manifest to them that a con- 
flict had arisen in which Claudius feared for his life, and in 
consequence wished to rid himself forever of the mad Prince. 
This riddance, they had strong reasons to infer meant noth- 
ing less than Hamlet's death. Zeal in the service of 
the criminal, prompts them, in an alacrity born of foolhardi- 
ness, to rush in between the gleaming swords of foes engaged 
in a fierce combat unto death, and their fate must be charged 
to their own rashness. Most commentators are in harmony 
with the clearly expressed views of Professor Werder: 

" Where such a tyrant reigns, his servants are always 
exposed to the very worst that can befall, and, yet at any 
moment, their ruin may come through circumstances and 
causes from which nothing may seem more remote than the 
catastrophe. Whoever serves such a king, and, without 
any misgivings of his crimes, serves him with ready zeal, 
upon him death has a claim; and if that claim be made 
good, he has no right to complain. — These are things in 
which Shakespeare knows no jesting, because he is so great 
an expounder of the law — the divine law; and he holds to 
it as no second poet has done." 

The main question, however, regards Hamlet. Was he 
justified in saving his own life even though it meant the 
sacrifice of the spies? The case, it is clear, can be settled 
only by viewing Hamlet's action subjectively, or by putting 
ourselves in his place, and considering the circumstances and 
dictates of conscience under which he acted. Professor 
Strachey says that in Hamlet 's view there is something more 
than his own life at stake; he is the representative of the 

[444] 



scene ii. FATE OF THE SPIES 

rights and the crown of Denmark, which have been outraged 
by a murderer and usurper, who, in the absence of the natural 
heir, murdered the rightful possessor, and by conspiracy 
seized the crown. These are, indeed extraordinary circum- 
stances — rare in the history of any country — and create 
a crisis which calls for some superior man to maintain the 
spirit of the laws, by disregarding their letter for the mom- 
ent. Hamlet on the testimony of the purgatorial ghost is in 
the present crisis this superior man; and therefore, to safe- 
guard the interests of his country and to avenge the crown 
and laws of Denmark, he is in duty bound to put the tyrant 
to death, and if as a means to that end he is obliged to sacri- 
fice base instruments of the tyrant's will, he is fully justified 
in doing so. This may have been Hamlet's view. 

The Professor's words are weighty, since they are based 
on facts. Denmark was an absolute monarchy, and on the 
death of his royal father, Hamlet, the crown prince, became 
ipso facto king. That a usurper by conspiracy seized the 
crown did not deprive Hamlet of his right, and he remained 
the de jure king. As such he was legally the supreme represen- 
tative of justice, and, therefore, could according to statute 
law punish with death any one who directly or indirectly 
attempted the life of the lawful sovereign and his heirs. If 
these views were Hamlet's, he could in justice tell Horatio 
that the death of the spies was not ' ' near his conscience. ' ' 

It is, moreover, reasonable to assume that under the 
circumstances Hamlet invoked the well known law of self- 
defence. Every one has the right to defend his life against 
the attack of an unjust aggressor. For this he may employ 
any force, and even if necessary take the life of the unjust 
assailant. But this right supposes the aggression to be 
actually begun, at least morally speaking ; that the danger of 
losing life is real ; and that there be no other means of escape. 

[445] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

In such an unjust aggression there arises between the assail- 
ant and the defendant a conflict of claims to life, in which 
the right of the defendant evidently prevails, while that of 
the assailant is there and then suspended. These elementary- 
principles were certainly well understood by Hamlet, a stud- 
ent of philosophy, and he saw them all exemplified in his 
present situation. He knew that the hireling spies were the 
willing tools of the chief conspirator against his life; that 
being ipso facto a prisoner in the hands of his enemies on 
board the royal ship, his voyage to England was a veritable 
journey to execution; that he was in the same condition as 
an innocent person conducted to the gallows or the electric 
chair; and that the whole trip together with its bloody end 
was morally one action. Death was inevitable, and he saw 
no other way of escape save by the means he employs. 

Why could he not, some one may ask, substitute a letter 
of totally different contents, say of some other business of a 
diplomatic nature ¥ It is impossible. Such a letter, he feared, 
would be ineffectual. He had every reason to think that the 
associate conspirators, the officers and spies, knew the nature 
of the secret letter to the English king; knew that the ficti- 
tious embassy was arranged solely to effect his death. He 
further had reason to believe that Claudius, from fear of 
inaction on the part of the king, had in anxiety given his 
emissaries secret oral instructions to urge, and even to insist 
upon his.execution. At best, if the English monarch doubted 
concerning his course of action, he would keep the Prince in 
custody until he had further heard from Claudius. Hence, 
under the circumstances, Hamlet saw no other way of saving 
his life than by the means he employed, and in their use he 
felt free from guilt, because, under the conditions forced upon 
him, he acted according to moral principles and the dictates 
of conscience. 

[446] 



scene ii. THE INTERIM 



THE INTERIM 



Having heard all the details of the King's treacherous 
design, Horatio expresses feelings of horror in the words, 
' ' Why, what a King is this ? ' ' Hamlet taking up his thought, 
emphasizes it by exposing the cankerous nature of the villain, 
as revealed in his horrid crimes of fratricide, incest, usurpa- 
tion, and his last attempted murder. With sufficient proof 
now in his possession to justify his act before the public he 
expresses by an affirmative question the conviction that he 
may at last with a clear conscience, strike the blow which 
will rid suffering humanity from the malignant cancer that 
feeds upon it. Furthermore, he feels persuaded that to allow 
the monster to live on, only to ripen in murderous villainies, 
is to stain his own soul with a most damnable sin. 

On hearing Hamlet 's firm resolve, Horatio insinuates the 
necessity of speedy action ; the execution of Rosencrantz and 
Guildenstern, which shall soon be made known by the return 
ship, shall place him in the power of the King : 

Horatio. It must be shortly known to him from England 

What is the issue of the business there. 
Hamlet. It will be short; the interim is mine; 

And a man's life's no more than to say 'one'. 

Standard criticism preserves a common silence concern- 
ing these lines which, nevertheless, are replete with surpris- 
ing revelations. This silence results perhaps from the opposi- 
tion of the text to the too prevailing yet erroneous view of 
Hamlet's vacillation or weakness of will. The elliptical 
phrase, "the time will be short; but the interim is mine," 
illumines as nothing else his remarkably changed conduct 
after the return to Denmark with the first tangible and posi- 
tive proof of the criminal's guilt. It throws new light upon 
his letter which hastily summoned Horatio to hear words that 

[447] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

will make him dumb. It makes us comprehend his mood 
when wandering in solemn meditative thought among the 
graves in the church-yard. It reveals the meaning of his 
unimpassioned jesting with the clown and his fixed indiffer- 
ence to life or death. It discloses the firm determination 
underlying the earnest recital of the incidents at sea, when 
the fighting in his heart would not let him sleep. It is an 
avowal of a state of mind which no longer impels him to 
soliloquies of self -accusing and berating the smiling, damned 
villain, but which is a settled conviction that he may now in 
"perfect conscience" strike the hated criminal: in a word, 
with proof at hand, his great resolve is energized into life — 
his mind is made up. "The interim," though short, "is his." 
In a day or two, the vessel returning from England shall 
be the signal for his own execution. If, therefore, he would 
save his life, he must slay the lawless murderer before the 
ship 's arrival. It has now become a moral act of self-defence, 
which he can do in "perfect conscience." Hence, his grim 
resolve that Claudius shall never hear the news. "The in- 
terim is short;" but it shall suffice to expose the secret crim- 
inal and rid the land of the hated ghoul. If thereby he him- 
self must fall, so be it. Death has been his daily familiar, 
since the hour which brought the settled conviction that he 
will probably lose his own life in the act of ' ' revenge ". It is no 
matter; now or never the blow must be struck. From that 
eventful day on which he resigned himself to the guidance 
of the Divinity that shapes our ends, that Divinity has been 
working in his cause. Even now Claudius, unconsciously 
but providentially, is arranging the time and place, in fact 
his messenger is already on the way to summon him to his 
task, and he is ready — ' ' the readiness is all. ' ' 

[448] 



scene ii. ATONEMENT 

I 

A SPIRIT OF ATONEMENT 

The imminent presence of death prompts Hamlet to turn, 
in troubled conscience, from his calm and firm resolve to the 
thought of his harsh and inconsiderate treatment of Laertes. 
The Poet delights to portray, under one form or another, his 
hero's noble nature, his superb mind rich in high ideals, his 
will strong in the love of good and hatred of evil, and his 
conscience, attuned even to the most delicate moral touch. 
Such a character, magnanimous towards others and severe 
towards himself, looks habitually upon every act of violence 
or outburst of passion, how pardonable soever, as a matter of 
self-accusation and reproach. Hence, before leaving the 
graveyard, Hamlet had, under the sting of conscience, sought 
reconciliation with Laertes; and the painful recall of his 
offence and expression of regret, is but another exhibit of his 
"most generous nature." 

If Hamlet 's offensive action was thoughtless and prompt- 
ed by a sudden impulse of passion, he has since had time to 
ponder its unwonted harshness, time to reflect that, as his 
mother was the sole witness of the manner in which Polonius 
met his sudden death, Laertes as well as others might doubt 
her testimony. As a strongly interested party, she would 
naturally do what she could to shield her idolized son. 
Such a supposition would readily impel a rash and choleric 
youth, like Laertes, to Jiold Hamlet morally guilty of his 
father's death. It was ignorance of this constructive 
guilt that led Hamlet to contest in heat of passion the 
grief of Laertes, but now, after calm reflection, he real- 
izes the reasonableness of Laertes' indignation, and 
generously resolves to make amends, and even to court his 
good will. He, furthermore, sympathizes with him; for he 
sees his cause mirrored in his own : both are aggrieved over a 

[449] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

father lost; both from deep affection mourn Ophelia's 
loss, 

" Though there's a difference in each other's wrong.' ' 

When, however, the remembrance of his fault recalls its prov- 
ocation, he can scarce restrain the thought that Laertes' 
exaggerated vanity and bombastic grief, sufficiently excused 
his own "towering passion" and counter bravado. Thus 
again the two characters are contrasted: while Hamlet in 
sentiments of sorrow for his fault, resolves to repair it. 
Laertes in foul conspiracy with the King, is taking immediate 
steps to execute his murderous plot. Already Hamlet sees 
looming to view, the royal messenger whom the conspirators 
have despatched to announce the preliminaries for the 
"revenge." 

THE ENVOY 

The troubled stream of Hamlet's life has settled down to 
a calm that forebodes a storm, and upon its smooth waters 
flits about the "waterfly," Osric. In him, perhaps, the 
youngest attendant at the court of Claudius, are typified cer- 
tain shallow courtiers of the Elizabethan age. They were 
fond of frivolous fribbles, of Euphuisms, and of the com- 
monly affected Sidneian style, and were wont to conceal their 
emptiness beneath the nicety of borrowed phrases. Hamlet's 
penetrating mind read Osric 's character as an open book. 
His love of worth and honesty, and his hatred of sham and 
pretence, caused him to question Horatio, whether or not he 
knew this approaching "water-fly." "To fools, whether 
circuitous like Polonius, or rampant like Laertes," he was 
characteristically merciless ; but this last intellectual tilt be- 
tween a foppish dolt on the threshold of life and a stately 
gentleman but one hour from the grave, is marked by the 

[450] 



scene ii. THE ENVOY 

same calm patience as that with the knavish sexton in the 
churchyard. 

As a water-fly is an ephemeral creature that, without 
any apparent purpose, flits or skims about upon the still sur- 
face of a stream, Hamlet aptly applies the term to Osric, 
who as a busy trifler, glides idly over the surface of the 
tragic pool. He again calls him a "chough," because, chat- 
tering by rote in Euphuistie jargon, he resembles a crow or 
some bird of the jackdaw species. Moreover, by the words 
"beast and lord of beasts," Hamlet makes a sarcastic stroke 
at the King for keeping such a dandified blockhead about 
him. No matter how base a fellow may be, whether a clown 
or a jackdaw, provided he is lord of large herds of cattle, or 
owner of expansive domains, he may become the King's 
bosom friend, and feed at his table. Much amusement is 
afforded at the expense of Osric. Standing, according to 
common etiquette, with head uncovered, the young courtier 
stubbornly resists Hamlet's repeated request to omit the 
usual ceremony. He thereby reveals his inability to apprec- 
iate the delicate refinement of the Prince's higher courtesy. 

With hat in hand, Osric proceeds to impress upon Hamlet 
his exalted idea of Laertes' greatness. Unable to appreciate 
the nobler intrinsic perfections that alone make a man of 
genuine worth, the shallow youth dwells in exaggerated des- 
cription only on those showy external qualities which natur- 
ally appeal to his superficial mind. Hamlet, in reply, parodies 
with ridicule the courtier's inflated style, and, by outdoing his 
hyperbolical Euphuisms, purposely renders himself unintel- 
ligible to the bewildered foolish fop. "Sir," says the Prince, 
"Laertes suffers nothing in your definement of him. To go 
into particulars about him, as if one were drawing up an 
inventory, would only turn men's heads dizzy; and after all, 
one could make but slow and unsteady progress in trying to 

[451] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

trace his rapid evolutions. But, to speak seriously and truly in 
praise of him, I do take him to be a combination of great 
qualities; and his essential virtues are so very rare that, to 
tell the truth, the only thing like him, is his own image in a 
mirror. All those who would imitate him, are no more than 
his shadows." 

Hamlet, in parodying Osr^c's Euphuistic affectations, 
speaks intentional nonsense, which, though couched in the 
poor youth's own style, is, he confessed, unintelligible to 
him; hence, Horatio exclaims in irony, "What! you can chat- 
ter in a strange jargon; can you not understand in the 
same?" And he prays them to use a common language 
which both can understand. 

When Osric continues to sing Laertes' supreme excel- 
lence, of which he insists Hamlet cannot be ignorant, the 
latter only further confuses the young courtier, by subtle 
philosophizing in which he sarcastically insinuates that, 
though Osric may know Laertes ' supreme excellence, he him- 
self must disclaim such knowledge. To pretend to know 
Laertes perfectly, is to presume an equality with him : no man 
can understand that which exceeds his own measure. 

After these many idle preliminaries, Osric is finally in- 
duced to blurt out the royal message. The King has arranged 
for an immediate trial of skill with swords, and, presupposing 
the superiority of Laertes, has wagered that he will not make 
as much as twelve hits for Hamlet's nine. Osric is commis- 
sioned to announce the Prince's readiness. "Let the foils be 
brought; and, if the King holds his purpose, let him come 
with his attendants to the hall which he knows is Hamlet's 
haunt at this the breathing time of day." 

As Osric covers his head, and hastens off, Horatio ex- 
claims, "this lapwing runs away with the shell on his head." 
The comparison was perhaps suggested by the tufted head 

[452] 



scene ii. AN URGENT SUMMONS 

of the lapwig, or peewit. Moreover, as among contemporary 
writers of the Poet, the peewit was a common symbol of a 
forward fool, it is aptly applied to Osric, whom Horatio rates 
a raw and foolish fellow. 

Hamlet's remarks which follow, are usually thought ob- 
scure. He speaks ironically of Osric. • He sees in him a type 
of the young courtiers of the day, who, picking up phrases 
and tricks of style fashionable at the moment, use them with- 
out originality and understanding. Their frothy collection 
of phrases and fashionable prattle, gives them a superficial 
readiness of slight and cursory conversation, and, like yeast, 
fills with bubbles the bread of their fantastic opinions; but, 
if you speak with them with any originality in their own vein 
or on serious matters, their bubbles burst and " their golden 
words are spent.' ' 

AN URGENT SUMMONS 

The conspirators, though sanguine of success, are im- 
patient of delay. At once at Osric 's arrival, they despatch a 
messenger for the purpose of leading Hamlet on to instant 
action. His words, so striking in their double meaning, are 
of course not understood by the courtier. Hamlet is "con- 
stant to his purpose." He still adheres to the acceptance of 
the challenge which he made to Osric; but his words have 
a deeper meaning: his resolve to avenge the murder of his 
father, remains unchanged, notwithstanding objective diffi- 
culties, which have confronted him through these months. 
Now, with clear proofs of the usurper's crime in hand, he 
solely awaits the "fitness of the king." These words vividly 
recall his former unconsciously prophetic words, to strike 
the King when 

" about some act 

That has no relish of salvation in 't." 

[453] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

Such an act is the present conspiracy of Claudius whose pur- 
pose is to murder Hamlet by means of the poisoned cup or 
sword. 

"The King and Queen," says the courtier, "are coming 
with all their retinue to witness your combat with Laertes." 7 

"In happy time," replies Hamlet. 

The Queen had not failed to notice the hard feelings of 
Laertes against her son, and she privately commissions the 
messenger to say that she desires him to give friendly greet- 
ing to the youth, and to treat him courteously before he 
enters upon the fencing bout. 

"She well instructs me," is Hamlet's laconic reply. 

The exit of the courtier allows Horatio to express in con- 
fidence his fears that Hamlet will lose the wager ; but the lat- 
ter, in view of the proffered odds and his daily practice with 
the rapier during Laertes' absence in France, entertains no 
doubt of success. He does, however, disclose his strong pres- 
entiment of evil. Perhaps the hostility of Laertes, and the 
thought of the treacherous King, who has prearranged the 
contest, are latent elements that rouse him to a sense of 
imminent danger. His true friend eagerly grasps at the ex- 
pressed forebodings, as a confirmation of his own misgivings. 
Aware that Laertes is intent upon avenging the murder of his 
father, and that he has been further angered by reason of 
recent humiliations heaped upon him in presence of the whole 
court, Horatio fears lest in his greater skill, now heightened 
by madness for revenge, he may make the contest the oc- 
casion to inflict a fatal blow on Hamlet. In consequence, 
while not daring to expose the nature of his fears, he feels 
impelled by kind solicitude to urge his friend to obey the 
promptings of his heart. 

Hamlet, however, is as usual too honorable to entertain 
suspicion, and, banishing\ all doubt and misgivings, even 

[454] 



scene ii. HAMLET'S FATALISM 

treats the pain at his heart as of no moment. Such feelings 
might trouble a woman, but as for himself he defies omens 
or auguries. Founded neither on reason nor piety, they are 
expressly forbidden by his religion. Hence, rising above 
such ' ' fooleries, ' ' he finds comfort in the thought that he can- 
not fall but by permission of Divine Providence. This con- 
fidence, based on his Christian Faith, he strengthens by re- 
calling the words of the Savior: "Are not two sparrows sold 
for a farthing? and not one of them shall fall on the ground 
without your Father." 37 

How strongly Hamlet's mind is swayed by his super- 
natural religion, has been already revealed in many pas- 
sages. It was most emphasized when, in the recognition of 
an all-ruling Providence, Who turned the failure of his best 
efforts to advantage, he resolved henceforth to entrust him- 
self to His guidance. This resolve we see reduced to practice 
in the present instance; in sublime faith he accepts life or 
death at the hands of Providence. Almost certain that he 
shall fall when striking the avenging blow, he leaves his 
fate to the appointment of a Higher Power. Death is fixed 
for all, though the hour be uncertain. If he is to die at some 
future time, it will not be now in the contest with Laertes. 
In either case, it matters little, since he is ready to lose his 
life in the performance of a sacred duty: "the readiness is 
all." Where, how, and when man dies is of small import; 
but the readiness at the call is of the highest moment. Ham- 
let's words are a summary of many truths which Christians 
only can fully comprehend. 

HAMLET'S FATALISM 

That commentators for the most part ignore Hamlet's 
religious belief and seek to prove from the text his accept- 

37 Matt. X, 29. 

[455] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

ance of fatalism, must appear strange to Catholic readers ; and 
the more so, since the very same passage offers an em- 
phatic refutation of the dream. If paganism and Christian- 
ity are as contrary as black and white, no less so are fatalism 
and Catholicity. If the fatalism of the ancient pagan world 
has, under a modified form, found acceptance with many non- 
religious men of our times, as well as with a modern Chris- 
tian sect whose fundamental doctrine is the harsh and inde- 
fensible belief that God positively creates certain men unto 
salvation, and others unto damnation; nevertheless, neither 
in Hamlet 's age nor in our own has it found an entrance into 
the Christian Church of the ages. On the contrary, fatalism, 
most pernicious under every form, she has always condemned 
as unscriptural and heretical. 

Fatalism is well expounded in Greek tragedy. These 
classic plays picture man's life so rigorously predetermined 
in all its details that his own volitions have no power to alter 
the course of events. Ruled by destiny, which was blind, ar- 
bitrary, and relentless, he moved inexorably onward to his 
fate. This harrowing doctrine was dealt a death-blow by 
Christianity. The new religion, under the illumination of 
divine revelation made man 's free will the central fact of the 
Christian conception of human life. But with freedom came 
man's moral responsibility, which is measured by a code of 
laws proceeding from the sovereign of the universe ; and these 
bear a sanction of reward or punishment, precisely because 
man is free to choose between good and evil. Shakespeare, as 
a Christian, rejected the fatalism of the Greek tragedians. 
In no one of his tragedies does he picture the suffering of the 
hero as arbitrarily predetermined without relation to his 
own thoughts and action. If aught is certain in the play of 
Hamlet, it is the hero's Catholicity. He proves it in the 
present text by his rejection of fatalism with its superstitious 

[ 456 ] 



scene ii. HAMLET'S FATALISM 

belief in "auguries" and such like "fooleries," and again by 
his profession of Christian Faith in an all-ruling Divinity. 
But unlike the fatalist, he sees in the direction of Providence, 
not a blind, but a rational guidance of an intellectual agent 
It neither shackles man's free will, nor destroys his liberty of 
action. 

This error of certain commentators concerning Hamlet's 
fatalism is, no doubt, due to their ignoring the influence of 
his Catholic Faith upon his thoughts and actions, and at- 
tempting to interpret the text in harmony with their own 
religious beliefs, or in support of their subjective theory. But 
their belief in regard to Divine Providence differs radically 
from Hamlet's, and his was that of the olden Church. This 
difference is ultimately traced to divergent views concern- 
ing man's free will. The view, common to modern sects, 
originated with the religious "Reformers" of the sixteenth 
century. They taught that original sin had not merely weak- 
ened man's will, but had deprived him of all freedom re- 
garding works morally good or bad ; and, as a consequence, 
we are no longer free to choose between moral good or evil. 
This fundamental doctrine destroys man's free will, leaves 
him but a blind instrument in the hands of fate. It is an 
error most lamentable in its many evil consequences, and is 
diametrically opposed to the hero 's Catholic Faith. 

According to Hamlet's religion, concupiscence is not 
original sin, as thought the "Reformers," but only one of 
its effects; and while weakening man's inclination to good, 
it does not corrupt his nature, nor destroy his free will. 
Moreover, the Creator, in the government of human affairs, 
respects the freedom with which He endowed the rational 
nature of his grandest handiwork, and in accordance, makes 
His providential guidance dependent upon man's free cooper- 
ation. Man, therefore, in his moral freedom of action, can 

[457] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

with full liberty of will accept or reject the influence of 
Providence; and upon this acceptance or rejection depends 
his eternal loss or gain. Hence, as a consequence of our 
gift of rational freedom, we become the arbiters of our own 
destiny. "To them that love God," — and only such accept 
His guidance — "all things work together unto good.'" 
Such was the Christian belief of Hamlet, and his words read 
in this light reveal him, not a fatalist, but a sincere and 
well-instructed Christian. 

The last clause in which the hero dwells upon his own 
indifference to life in confirmation of his resignation to the 
will of Providence, has been considered obscure, and its 
obscurity had led to varied corruptions of the text. 39 But 
this obscurity vanishes, if we consider that the clause takes 
its meaning from preceding thoughts with which it bears 
the intimate relation of cause and effect, and is, moreover, 
colored by the Christian sentiment, which underlies the 
whole paragraph. 

The current reading is the amended text of Dr. Johnson. 
His intimate knowledge of the Catholic religion was to him 
a light in the darkness that enveloped others who were either 
unwilling or unable to comprehend the Christian truths that 
animated and directed Hamlet's process of thought. He 
affirms that, as in the sparrow's fall, so in his own, there is a 
special Providence. If he fall now or later, what matters it, 
provided he be ready? Readiness for the summons is the 
all important thing. Why then, since he is ready, should he 
yield to the common instinct, by wishing for a longer life? 
As no man can foresee what good or evil other years may 

38 Rom. VIII, 28. 

39 The Second Quarto (1604) reads: "Since no man of ought he leaves knows 

what is't to leave betimes let be." "The First Folio" (1623 has: 
"Since no man has ought of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes?" 

[ 458 ] . 



scene ii. RECONCILIATION 

have in store for him, he cannot know whether death cuts 
him off from happiness or calamity. 

Only for a moment does the shadow of death flit before 
his mind, and cause him a pain at heart. But without falter- 
ing, he soon resumes his wonted calm and determination. He 
seems to recognize in the King's second subterfuge of the 
prearranged contest with Laertes, the Providential opportu- 
nity he has been awaiting. In vision he sees himself with 
weapon in hand in presence of the royal court, when the 
King is not engaged in prayer, but with murder in his heart. 
It is the one awaited opportunity, and he shall meet it with 
the "readiness" which has never relaxed through all the 
interruptions of events. 

RECONCILIATION 

Hamlet's philosophizing is checked by the entrance of 
the King and Queen with their full retinue. The contest is 
to be in public view of the whole court, and every courtier 
is present, anxious to witness the display of skill. Claudius 
in wonted hypocrisy advances, leading Laertes by the hand, 
and requests the Prince to clasp it in token of reconciliation 
and friendship. Hamlet, "most generous and free from all 
conniving," is true to his resolve to "court the favor" of 
Ophelia's brother. The thought of death before him, his 
own desire is to be at peace with all the world. Confessing 
in superabundant penitence the wrong he has done Laertes, 
he, in princely courtesy, appeals for forgiveness to his honor 
as a gentleman. Though his conduct was such as should 
offend Laertes' honor, and stir his very nature to rebellion, 
yet in extenuation, he reminds him of the "sore distraction" 
whereby he is known to be afflicted. It was not a friend that 
wronged a friend; Hamlet gone mad was not Hamlet him- 
self, and, therefore, when in madness he offended Laertes, he 

[ 459 ] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

therein wronged himself, for "his madness is poor Hamlet's 
enemy. ' ' 

He plays upon the word "madness" in a double sense. 
In the one case, he refers to Laertes ' knowledge of the com- 
mon opinion, which reputed him stricken with insanity, and, 
therefore, morally unaccountable for the death of Polonius, 
for his harsh treatment of Ophelia, and his strange conduct 
at her grave. He is least concerned with the last; for he 
knows that Laertes ' resentment arises chiefly from the death 
of his father and his sister. But in palliation he cannot plead 
the actual circumstances under which he slew Polonius, even 
though these exonerate him from guilt, because they art 
strictly secret to his mother and himself ; nor can he explain 
the reason of his unkindness to Ophelia, since it would incul- 
pate both Laertes and his father. In the other case the term 
madness implies, not his supposed mental derangement, but 
the anger and fury which in wildness of passion overcame 
him, when, mistaking Polonius, concealed behind the arras, 
for the murderous usurper, he slew him in an impulse of 
overmastering rage. Again, "madness" refers to the uncon- 
trolled passion which swayed him at Ophelia's grave, when 
he saw Laertes unbecomingly parade his exaggerated grief 
before the royal court. Abhorring all shams and pretences, 
he felt himself aroused to indignation and to flaming anger ; 
for he looked upon such theatrical show as a desecration of 
Ophelia's memory, and a challenge to his own genuine and 
supreme love. In both instances, "madness" is synonymous 
with an outburst of anger, which often by its vehemence, 
deprives a man for the time of the use of reason. 

Consistently portrayed through the drama as a Chris- 
tian gentleman of perfect self-control, Hamlet exemplifies in 
himself more than once the Christian axiom: "The patient 
man is better than the valiant: he that ruleth his spirit, 

[460] 



scene ii. RECONCILIATION 

than he that taketh cities." 1 A man's blind and irrational 
passions are his worst enemies. Accordingly, the Prince, not- 
withstanding his just provocation, could in apology truth- 
fully affirm, "His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy." In the 
consciousness that he had offended Laertes publicly, in pres- 
ence of the whole court, he, in a Christian sense of duty, 
now makes before the same audience an amende honorable. 
Disclaiming any malice or purposed wrong, he concludes in 
the hope that his "brother," a noble youth of "most gener- 
ous thougnts," will recognize in his conduct nothing more 
than an accidental and undesigned offence. 

The grandeur of Hamlet's character, as revealed in his 
frankness, sincerity, and noble sentiments, deepens by con- 
trast the ignoble traits of the murderous conspirator. Laer- 
tes' egotistic sensitiveness, his petty concern to maintain 
the good opinion of his world, and his esteem for social 
customs rather than for the claims of conscience and of 
natural affection, are all qualities indicative of the artificial, 
and not of the true gentleman. His reply unmasks his 
hypocrisy, and discloses that association with the royal con- 
spirator has rapidly developed his natural aptitude for 
treachery and cunning. Resolved upon the murder of Ham- 
let, and, in consequence, heedless of his proffered renewal of 
friendship, he meets his frankness with artifice and duplicity. 

In his words, the Poet gives a satirical stroke at the 
notion of fantastical, or artificial honor which was common to 
youths of the day. Laertes pretends that, though Hamlet has 
satisfied his natural feelings of resentment, yet his sense of 
honor demands that in deference to public opinion and to 
custom he must delay reconciliation until by an appeal to the 
court of honor, he may learn whether he should insist on a 
further and more rigorous vindication of his wounded man- 

1 Prov. XVI, 32. 

[461] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

hood. Such courts, more or less common among warlike peo- 
ples, were supreme tribunals, which regulated the practice of 
duelling, and decided upon the justice of the cause which 
prompted the challenger's appeal to arms. By his insinua- 
tion of a duel, which would keep "his name ungored," 
Laertes, no doubt, intended to construct a rampart of de- 
fence, in case his murderous design on Hamlet should be 
crowned with success. He concludes his reply with the false 
promise that, in the meanwhile, he accepts in like affection 
Hamlet's sincerely offered love. But, with fingers itching for 
that unbated and envenomed sword, and with thoughts as 
black as his words are treacherous, he utters a second false- 
hood in the promise, "not to wrong" that love. 

Hamlet, in reply, accepts Laertes ' ' ' offered love ' ' in 
words which, though brief, are hearty and full of princely 
courtesy. His refined moral nature bars him from suspecting 
that a man whom he has always assumed to be " a very noble 
youth ' ' — a man whom even now he has heard in loud defence 
of his manhood and knightly honor, could descend to any- 
thing so abysmally vile as the treachery which blackens 
Laertes' mind and heart. Even a suspicion of so foul a deed 
was most abhorrent to a man who, in real nobility of nature, 
was most truthful, and sincere, and generous. Hence, though 
watchful amid the assembled court, and keenly alert against 
any trickery by Claudius, he has not the least mistrust of his 
knightly opponent. In accepting to play the wager, Hamlet 
again calls Laertes, "brother:" a relationship in likelihood 
suggested by his tender memory of Ophelia. He compli- 
ments his brother upon his mastery of the sword; and, in 
punning, promises to be his "foil." As a foil, or gold-leaf 
is used to heighten the lustre of a gem, so, Hamlet shall 
cause Laertes to shine by contrast in starry brilliancy. 

[462] 



, 



scene ii. THE SMILING VILLAIN 

THE CONTEST 

Stirred to impatience by these verbal delays, Claudius 
commands the combatants to take the swords, and reminds 
Hamlet of the wager. The word, "odds" is used in different 
senses by Hamlet and the King; with the former, it refers 
to the value of the stakes which Claudius has wagered: 
namely — six Barbary horses against six preciously hilted ra- 
piers, and poniards with their trappings; with the King, on 
the other hand, it signifies the three off-hits, or points which 
he concedes to Hamlet, as a fair offset to his opponent's supe- 
rior skill. While from the many weapons offered, Laertes in 
secret chooses his own unbated and "anointed" blade, Ham- 
let, unsuspicious, merely queries whether the foils be of equal 
length. 

In regal state, surrounded by his minions, lords, and 
courtiers, sits enthroned in the great hall "the smiling 
damned villain." Gazing about him in gloating vision, his 
countenance beaming forth in elation of mind and heart, 
he revels in the assured success of his cunning. All is in 
readiness for the pageant of death: before him are the ap- 
pointed judges or umpires with Osric at their head, and 
before him stands the easy and ready victim, unsuspicious, pas- 
sionless, and powerless. No longer need he fear the pursuing 
hand of vengeance, which threatens the loss of life and 
crown. The dread secret again all his own, he shall enjoy 
undisturbed the peaceful fruition of his crime. 

Though happy at heart, he does not forget his cunning. 
To safeguard his treachery from suspicion, he proclaims with 
ready hypocrisy and joyful mood that the fencing bout shall 
be celebrated with all the gladness of a festal day. In mirth- 
ful tones, he commands that the merry stoups of wine be set 
upon the public table, and that, at Hamlet's first hit, pealing 
trumpets shall blare forth the fact, and great cannons from 

[463] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

near battlements shall roar it to the heavens. He himself shall 
drink in joy to the Prince's health, and, in earnest of good 
will, shall put, as a present in the latter 's cup, a union, or 
rich oriental pearl of unsurpassed value. Thus revelling by 
anticipation in the success of his plot, Claudius hopes by the 
manifestation of unrestrained joy, which is partly real and 
partly feigned, to guard against suspicion, both in Hamlet's 
and in the public mind. In fine, after warning the judges, to 
be opened-eyed and wary, he, all impatient for the issue, com- 
mands the combatants to begin. 

THE FIRST BOUT 

When after a few passes, Hamlet makes the first hit, the 
blast of trumpets awakens to voice the thundering guns. 
The first bout is over; but the second is stayed by the King, 
who has risen in surprise: — and manifest excitement. Or- 
dering on the instant two cups of wine, he deftly lets fall 
into one a poison-drop instead of the precious pearl: and, as 
a courtier presents the drink to Hamlet, Claudius himself 
seizing the other cup, invites him, amid the joyful din of 
roaring guns, to drink his health with him. In his over- 
mastering impatience, born of his thirst for Hamlet's blood, 
he cannot kill him fast enough. 

As the scene advances, Hamlet's situation grows most 
pathetic. Lured into the snare of his deadly foe, he stands 
face to face with the usurper and his sycophantic court, 
ready with sword in hand to defend his life, all unconsci- 
ously, against an enemy who, rejecting reconciliation, has 
sworn to be satisfied with nothing less than his destruction. 
The conspirators have decreed his butchery there and then, 
in order to make a Danish holiday. 

In that concourse, Hamlet finds no sympathy, save that 
of the lone Horatio and his unsuspecting mother ; the former, 

[464] 



scene ii. THE FIRST BOUT 

by his clouded countenance, reveals a depression of heart, 
which arises from some indistinct forebodings of evil; the 
latter, still infatuated with her incestuous lord and unable 
even to dream of treachery, gloats in pride of maternal love 
upon her noble son. Hamlet himself feels instinctively that 
"the smiling villain" has some new stratagem afoot, and re- 
solves in watchfulness and wariness to await its development. 

In a fearlessness born of a brave nature, he faces un- 
daunted the hated criminal, confident of his own ability to 
overmatch his cunning, and to turn his knavery against 
him. From the time he placed himself in the hands of Provi- 
dence, he felt that Divinity was shaping his ends ; was ripen- 
ing the harvest for him : and now, as he stands with sword 
in hand, before the enthroned criminal and his glittering 
court, he is almost certain that the one supremely favorable 
moment is at hand. No longer is delay forced upon him, since 
he has in his possession the long-looked-for proof of the 
criminal's guilt. Now, therefore, may he at last with a 
clear conscience strike the avenging blow. The awaited 
opportunity has come ; "the readiness is all." 

Hamlet's intimate knowledge of the King's character 
enables him to thwart the cunning, concealed in the prof- 
fered cup. The known depravity of Claudius, his unnatural 
crime and innate treachery, his lately discovered plot to sil- 
ence in death the one witness against him, his arrangement 
of the contest, his presiding thereat in manifestly exagger- 
ated glee, and his urging upon his nephew the cup into which 
he had dropped that specious pearl : — are elements, all com- 
bining to engender strong suspicion in the Prince who, alert 
at every turn against his uncle's perfidy, has come to trust 
him as he would "adders fanged." Hence, without hesita- 
tion, he waves aside the tempting cup. "By and by" he will 
attend to it; "by and by," when the play at swords is done, 

[465] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

he will force the King himself to taste the virtue of the 
" union " in that cup. 

THE SECOND TRIAL 

The second bout begins, and as Laertes simply plays with 
Hamlet, the latter soon makes another hit. The Queen, how- 
ever, at the sight of her son's shortness of breath and brow 
suffused with perspiration, addresses him in maternal solici- 
tude. The expression "fat," as applied to Hamlet, is a 
source of difficulty. A fat Hamlet is, says Lowell, as incon- 
ceivable as is a lean Falstaff. Moreover, such a phrase 
must be considered an unpoetic description of the "glass of 
fashion, and the mold of form." 

If unsuited to the Prince, it was, however, most appro- 
priate to Kichard Burbage, who, as the star tragedian of 
Shakespeare 's company, impersonated Hamlet. As he was a 
portly man of large physique, it was natural that the strenu- 
ous exertion called forth in the repeated fencing bouts, 
should bring out the fact that he was "fat" or out of train- 
ing, as well as ' ' scant of breath. ' ' Hence, as tradition affirms, 
the word was inserted in the text, in deference to the portly 
form of Burbage. He was the first and last "fat" Hamlet. 
Since his day, the unvarying and popular impersonations of 
the Prince, have been — in accordance with the exigencies of 
the drama, — lean Hamlets. In consequence, the word "fat," 
though retained in the text, has come to mean merely that 
the Prince was out of training. 

As the second bout closes, the Queen is overjoyed. Yield- 
ing to her self-indulgent nature, she reaches for the evil cup 
and, unsuspecting, announces her purpose to "carouse" to 
her son's "fortune." The King is at once alarmed and ex- 
claims, "Gertrude do not drink." Her rash act instantly 
draws from Hamlet the warning expostulation, "Good 

[466] 



scene ii. THE FINAL BOUT 

Madam!" When, however, she persists, he again cautions 
her by guarded but emphatic voice, "I dare not drink yet 
madam." But mistrusting nothing, the Queen, heedless of 
his warning, fatuously drinks of the fated cup. 

THE FINAL BOUT 

Thus far, Laertes without great exertion had stood cau- 
tiously on the defensive with the unbated sword. He and 
the royal conspirator had, no doubt, agreed that, to guard 
their plot from suspicion, a few bouts should be played before 
the fatal stroke. At the beginning of the third trial, Laertes 
reminds the King that the opportune time had come. In an 
aside, however, he gives ear to the voice of his disturbed con- 
science; but its wee, wee voice, he quickly smothers, as he 
had so often done before in his habitually wayward life. His 
musing is brief; his antagonist eagerly summons him to be- 
gin the third bout. 

Without dreaming of the cause, Hamlet had perceived 
that in the preceding plays, Laertes had not fenced with 
vigor, and now challenges him to "pass with his best vio- 
lence." Laertes, thereupon, assumes the offensive, and by 
vigorous play soon wounds Hamlet. The latter, cut unex- 
pectedly, is at once stung into fiery action. With the warm 
blood coursing from the wound, quick as a flash comes the 
thought of perfidy, and with eagle-glance, he sees its proof 
in the crimsoned, unbated point of Laertes' sword. With 
a brief scornful glare, now at the base ignoble youth, and 
now at the abhorred criminal, he realizes in the stratagem of 
the present fencing bout, their murderous design upon his 
life. Quick is his resolve to seize that treacherous, unbated 
weapon which is already anointed with his blood, and to 
do a bloody deed that shall forever bar the mis- 
creant from further crime. One reproachful look at the 

[467] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

dishonored youth, and then, letting loose his pent-up 
strength, he rushes, like a tiger, in the fury of momentary 
madness, upon his insidious foe, and, by an unexpected 
terrible blow, strikes the deadly weapon from Laertes' hand. 
A scuffle ensues. Laertes struggles fiercely to regain his 
sword; he fears its possession by Hamlet means his own 
certain death. Brief is the struggle : baffled by the Prince's 
superior strength, Laertes loses the prize, and is reluctantly 
obliged in self-defence to take up Hamlet's rejected foil; and, 
though battling bravely against the terrific passes of his 
furious antagonist, he is soon wounded by his own perfidious 
blade. 

No stage-directions are found in the original Quartos 
nor in the subsequent Folios concerning the manner in which 
the rapiers were exchanged. The description in our modern 
text was inserted by Rowe. Its obscurity has given rise to 
various explanations. One opinion suggests that as soon as 
Laertes perceives Hamlet to be inflamed to anger by his 
wound, he attempts to disarm him by griping the hilt of his 
sword; but Hamlet, in accordance with the code, resorts to 
the same maneuvre, and so the two exchange weapons. An- 
other opinion, exemplified by Whiteside and Salvini, once 
famous impersonators of Hamlet, supposes that the Prince, 
after being wounded, disarms Laertes, and, as the latter 
stoops to regain his rapier, Hamlet puts his foot thereon, at 
the same time holding out with a scornful look, his own 
weapon to his rival. Laertes, forced with great reluctance to 
take it, receives a few moments later his death thrust from 
the unbated and envenomed sword, which Hamlet had seized 
from the floor. 

Different, however, was the practice of Booth. "Hamlet 
secures Laertes' foil by a powerful parry of his thrust in 
carte, by which he disarms him; catching the foil with the 

[468] 



scene ii. TREACHERY 

left hand as it leaves Laertes' grasp, he uses it as a dagger, 
being too close to him for a free use of his own weapon." 
If such action be excused on the plea that Hamlet is "in- 
censed" and excited, and that Laertes is barred from de- 
manding fair play, since he has been foul from the start ; it is, 
nevertheless, not suggested by the text, and, moreover, seems 
in contradiction to Hamlet's noble and generous nature. With 
Laertes' deadly weapon in hand, he had no need, though 
"incensed," to resort to so base a practice. 

TREACHERY! SEEK IT OUT 

The King is satisfied that his nephew's bleeding wound 
assures the success of the plot, and commands the combatants 
to be parted. But Hamlet is not satisfied. His fierce reply, 
"Nay, nay, come, again!" indifferent whether it be Laertes 
or the crowned criminal, — should have aroused fear in the 
heart of Claudius. How like a wounded lion, the stricken 
Prince faces undaunted that mute assembly, and with that up- 
lifted avenging sword, holds all at bay, fearless against further 
treachery. Glaring about with eyes aglow with fire, and 
breathing defiance to the usurper and his court, his is the 
majesty and mien of the Nemesis of justice. Scarcely has he 
uttered his challenge of defiance, before a great disturbance 
arises. The courtiers pointing towards the writhing Queen, 
exclaim in excitement : ' ' Look to the Queen there, ho ! " Ger- 
trude, helpless in the clutch of death, had fallen prostrate to 
the floor, dying in a paroxysm of agony. 

Amid the commotion, the King is the first to speak. He 
seeks to cloak his villainy with words of cunning falsehood, 
words, which instead of sheltering his hypocrisy, rouse the 
dying Queen to expose his villainy. Too late had she realized 
the import of Hamlet's warning words; and, now expiring, 
she calls upon her son, and, before that wondering assem- 

[469] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

bly, exposes with dying voice the crime of her treacherous 
consort. Her public confession, so confirmatory of Hamlet's 
fears, startles him into wondrous energy of action. Horror- 
stricken at the murder of his mother, a spirit of revulsion 
racks his whole being; flushes his face with anger; flames 
his heart to vengeance; and, as he points at the usurper, 
now pallid and cowering beneath the sense of his exposed 
guilt, he exclaims, with accusing voice alive with passion, 0, 
villainy, villainy! 

Beside the corpse of his mother, he stands like the dread 
angel against the hordes of evil. He sweeps his gleaming 
sword in semi-circle about him, while scanning one by one 
with rapid glaring eye, each of the surrounding nobles. Then 
with a loud voice which commands obedience he cries, 
"treachery! seek it out! Let the door be locked against the 
criminal 's escape ! ' ' Those words seal the doom of Claudius. 

The exigencies of the tragedy required Shakespeare to 
picture Hamlet, not in the bright sunshine of young and 
buoyant life, but enwrapt with oppressive clouds of gloom; 
yet, at the supreme crisis, he could not fail to give us, 
through a brief rift of those clouds, a glimpse of his best be- 
loved hero : and he exhibits him, while laboring in the pangs 
of death, soaring magnanimous of soul above the sufferings 
of earth, and disclosing to the last his accustomed sweetness 
of nature, nobility of mind, generosity of heart, love of good, 
hatred of hypocrisy and vice ; and all crowned with a glorious 
heroic power of action. 

Of this latent power of action the Prince was ever con- 
scious. It had never failed him at need, and would, he was 
sure, respond to his call at the right moment. But that mo- 
ment never came till now. Never before could he strike the 
avenging blow, unless he would "taint his soul;" unless, 
unmindful of his honor, which he treasured more than life, 

[ 470 ] 



scene ii. TREACHERY 

he would like a madman do a deed that would at once 
enshrine Claudius as a martyr in the annals of his country, 
and leave to posterity his own name attainted by the infamy 
of a traitor who by an assassin's stroke had attempted to 
gain the throne. Such was not the task, as he understood it, 
the task imposed upon him by the heaven-sent purgatorial 
ghost. Its mandate surely did not call for a private, vindic- 
tive, and unchristian stroke of revenge, but rather for one 
approved by conscience and the principles of his religion. 
It could only mean a public act of complete retributive jus- 
tice, and involved the unmasking of the hypocrite, the ex- 
posure of his crimes, and the privation of the crown and 
Queen. That such an act of retributive justice would be 
possible in the public contest arranged by his enemy, he had 
devined at its announcement, and instantly resolved to accept 
the opportunity. 

If we reflect upon Hamlet's singular position in the pres- 
ent crisis, the scene so thrilling and so awe-inspiring assumes 
indeed a grander aspect. Assembled in that royal hall are 
all the majesty and power of Denmark. Around him are the 
nobles of the realm, the representatives and guardians of law 
and justice. In their midst sits enthroned the de facto King, 
and before them stands sword in hand the heaven-appointed 
avenger of crime. As the de jure King, he is the highest 
legal representative of justice. This royal assembly is, under 
the circumstances, the supreme tribunal of the nation. The 
judges are the nobles, the culprit is the murderous usurper, 
the prosecutors are the inculpating witnesses, and Hamlet, 
the divinely appointed avenger, shall as the de jure King 
exercise the royal prerogative in the execution of the convict- 
ed criminal. The confession of Claudius is no longer 
indispensable. Others testify against him: the paramour of 
his guilt, the instruments of his treachery, and his stricken 

[471] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

fellow-conspirator, all accuse him. Before the judges lies 
the corpse of the Queen, who with dying voice testified 
against her incestuous husband; before them lies the pros- 
trate Laertes, the self-confessed associate and instrument of 
the royal criminal, and to their wondering ears he unravels 
the murderous plots of the "smiling damned villain:" and 
all, the Queen, Laertes, Hamlet, and the poisoned bowl and 
blade cry aloud the guilt of the multi-murderer. His crimes 
thus exposed and proven before the representatives of the 
nation, the avenger may now with public approval drag the 
monster from the throne, and by a supreme act of retribu- 
tive justice despatch him to his last account. 

OVERTAKEN BY NEMESIS 

The catastrophe rushes on in a storm of wondrous rapi- 
dity. Quick was the judgment, quicker still was its fulfil- 
ment in the one stroke which overwhelms us with surprise. 
All the while Hamlet, with his firm grasp on the avenging 
sword, had in feverish impatience been listening to Laertes' 
confession; but when at the tale of the "anointed" blade, 
he realizes that in the train of the poison coursing through 
his arteries, death is stealthily creeping on him, he hears 
the call to instant action; hears it reverberating loud as a 
trumpet's blast, and with flaming eyes fixed on the enth- 
roned murderer, he pauses but a moment, as the panther 
when crouching for the leap, and then, quick as the lightning 
flash, delivers the death blow to the cowering criminal. 

At last, when the hapless Claudius is quivering in af- 
fright, pierced by the envenomed blade, all his attendants, 
lords and soldiers, find their voices and exclaim, "treason! 
treason ! " In reply, the bleeding King piteously appeals to his 
friends, ' ' come, defend me yet ; I am but hurt. ' ' These words 
so characteristic, exhibit him to the last, the type of strength 

[472] 



scene ii. OVERTAKEN BY NEMESIS 

and quick decision. Aware that his wound from the poisoned 
sword is mortal beyond repair, yet from horror of the judg- 
ment awaiting his crime, he clings tenaciously, though des- 
pairingly to the hope of life. But not one of that sycophantic 
crew dare cross at the risk of life the path of that solitary 
champion of the grave. His eyes afire with anger, his count- 
enance suffused with the rage of a wounded lion, he stands 
defiant, a giant of strength with gleaming sword extended, 
and before him, all recoil in fear as from some dread aveng- 
ing angel, panic stricken with terror and dismay. 

In vain was the bleeding criminal's appeal for help. 
His words only roused the avenger the more. In one instant 
rushing forward, Hamlet clutches the trembling and terrified 
monarch, drags him from the throne, pinions him to earth 
between his feet, and forces 'the potent poison' down his 
reluctant throat, exclaiming the while in maddening rage: 
"0 thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane, drink off this 
potion! Is thy union here ? Follow my mother ! " The aw- 
ful irony of those terrible words were bitterer than the 
poisoned bowl. A moment more, and the criminal writhing 
with the throes of death shrivels up soul and body in the fiery 
furnace of the avenger's wrath. Vengeance comes in a more 
comprehensive form of justice, than Hamlet could have de- 
vised, and even executed by his own unaided power. Clau- 
dius at last overtaken in an ; ' act that has no relish of salva- 
tion in it," is surprised by death, which without warning 
hurries his soul still more polluted to the dread account be- 
fore the " Everlasting Judge." His end seems a ''retribution 
so righteous and complete, that it resembles less a human 
intervention than a divine dispensation." 40 

40 Cf. Essay on Hamlet, G. Miles. 

[473] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

THE FELL SERGEANT 

In his dying prayer, Laertes reveals his better self, and 
stirs us to compassion. He had been heedless of religion 
throughout his youthful life, and deaf to the voice of con- 
science, but his sickly faith now quickens into healthy action at 
the touch of the grim awakener death. Feeling himself sinking 
into eternity his conscious guilt of wilful murder weighs 
heavy on his soul. Malevolence, which had previously in- 
spired him to spurn reconciliation with his intended victim, 
now gives way to remorse, and remorse, engendering a spirit 
of repentance, impels him to crave forgiveness. Poorly in- 
structed in the moral law, he does not comprehend the dif- 
ference between a wilful and an unwilful act, and, therefore, 
assuming Hamlet to be as guilty as himself, he prays : "Mine 
and my father's death come not upon thee." The Prince, 
however, ignores the implied charge of guilt; he feels no 
qualm of conscience. Always actuated, as the drama shows, 
by Christian principles; always sensitive to every evil that 
might tarnish the lustre of his conscience; he is buoyed up 
in the face of death, by an assured sense of rectitude. He 
knows that, according to strict principles of Christian mo- 
rals, he is in the eyes of God guiltless of Polonius' unin- 
tended or accidental death; furthermore, he knows that he 
is innocent of Laertes' death; since it is due, not to his 
slight wound, but to the poison of his own fell contrivance, of 
which he was wholly ignorant; again, he knows that, in 
striking down the incestuous usurper, he was merely execut- 
ing the decree which Heaven's preternatural messenger had 
promulgated for the vindication of the laws of state and reli- 
gion ; and, therefore, in a calm of conscience, undisturbed by 
the spectre, death, he is ready to enter the spirit world with- 
out fear or terror. Moved, however, to compassion by Laer- 
tes' sincere contrition, he feels inspired by Christian charity 

[ 474] 



scene ii. AN ANTIQUE ROMAN 

to forgive his dual act of treachery, and in heart-felt prayer, 
implores Heaven to forgive his murderer. 

No expiring tragic character appears so pathetically 
grand as this young Prince in his dying thoughts and senti- 
ments. That cruel poison, having ravaged through life's 
arteries, has, in fine, reached his heart. As he feels the chil- 
ling, relentless hand of death tightning its grasp upon him, 
he casts a last look on the pitiful scene about him. Near is 
his mother's corpse, and its sight, recalling her unfortunate 
end, stirs him to poignant grief, ''wretched Queen, adieu!" 
It is a vain adieu: for his grief is further burdened by the 
thought that she died, unprepared, overtaken in her sin. 
False to her promise of repentance, she had spurned the call 
of grace, and, persevering in her incestuous union, she was 
pitilessly stricken by stealthy death, dying as she lived. 

His gaze is next fixed on the hapless courtiers "that look 
pale and tremble" at the havoc. They stand before him, a 
mute audience; gladly would he satisfy the expectant, hung- 
ering look which he sees reflected from each face ; but, as the 
pains of dissolution are already sapping his manly strength 
and blunting his senses, he perceives his life is ebbing very 
fast. His inability to tell that mute and wondering audience 
his sad tale in defence of his princely name and honor, is his 
last greatest grief. In extremity, he relies upon his loved and 
trusted friend. He shall survive, and, by exposing his ' ' cause 
aright" to the "unknowing world," shall, by the light of 
truth, shield his name from dishonor. 

AN ANTIQUE ROMAN 

Horatio, however, will not hear of it. The thought of 
parting from his true friend, stirs his strong, manly love, 
usually so silent and unobtrusive. Deep streams flow on in 
a silent calm, undisturbed, save by the violence of storms; 

[475] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

and overpowering grief is the storm which now agitates Ho- 
ratio 's mind and heart. The sincerity of his love seems chal- 
lenged by Hamlet's words, "Horatio, I am dead; thou livest." 
Undivided in life, why should they be divided by death? 
The storm raging in his aggrieved heart, blinds him for the 
moment to reason and the sense of duty ; and, in consequence 
his conscience benumbed by sorrow yields to sentiments nat- 
ural to an "antique Roman." An eager glance at the poi- 
soned cup, and he quickly reaches out to seize the same, ex- 
claiming, "Here's yet some liquor left." 

Hamlet instantly divines the import of Horatio's words, 
and is horror-stricken at the thought of his madly rash and 
unchristian purpose. He himself, when afflicted by an over- 
powering sense of evil, had been tempted against the canon 
of the Almighty, but, with Christian fortitude, had conquered 
the temptation. He is, therefore, surprised at the weakness 
of a man like Horatio, who, little given to emotion, is known 
for uncommon fortitude, and calm, solid judgment. Fearing, 
however, lest his friend, now blinded by grief and unreason- 
ing sentiment, may, in the forgetfulness of duty, yield to his 
present rash and unmanly impulse, Hamlet is roused to a 
struggle of stern resistance, in order to save Horatio from 
himself. Though bleeding, reeling, dying, yet by powerful 
energy of will, he summons all his strength to wrestle a mo- 
ment for victory — for the life of his grief-stricken and de- 
voted friend. The dying hero's struggle "has more the flash 
of motion of a Homeric god than of a man." Seizing the 
cup, while exclaiming in anxious pleading tones, "as thou 
art a man, let go! by Heaven I'll have it!" he wrenches it 
from the grasp of Horatio, and as quickly dashes from him, 
its fell contents — the love-potion of his friend. 

Hamlet observes that Horatio, distracted by an all-ab- 
sorbing grief, fails to grasp the meaning and importance of 

[476] 



scene ii. HIS DYING MOMENTS 

his request; in consequence, he again urges him in most ex- 
plicit and pathetic terms. It is his only thought and weighs 
heavily upon him. He foresees that his action may be as- 
cribed to impulse ; that his long silent struggle in the pursuit 
of a ''revenge" that would meet with a just and public ap- 
proval, may be never known to Denmark; that the story of 
his sad, harsh fate, and of a duty all done, may remain un* 
told, and he, the last scion of a lapsed dynasty, may go down 
to the grave, a reputed madman, traitor, and assassin, and 
so leave an honored name disgraced forever in the annals of 
his country. The very thought, the very fear afflicts him. 
To his refined ethical nature, imbued with the highest senti- 
ments of honor, such a fear engenders supreme mental ang- 
uish. This anguish is again voiced in his pathetic appeal : " 
good Horatio, what a wounded name, things standing thus un- 
known, shall live behind me!" His anxieties, watchings, and 
untiring efforts, all through the months of delay, had been to 
preserve his Christian manhood and princely honor from con- 
tamination; and now he begs, he entreats, he implores his 
friend in token of his strong affection, to defer following him 
to future felicity awhile, in order that, tarrying in this ' ' harsh 
world ' ' a little longer, he may heal his wounded name by sat- 
isfying the expectant ear of Denmark. 

HIS DYING MOMENTS 

Hamlet's fierce struggle for the cup, and his heart-rend- 
ing appeals to Horatio, have overtaxed his sinking energies, 
and strengthened the grasp of death. "The potent poison," 
he tells his friend, already seems to crow in victory over his 
dying form. He feels himself in the throes of dissolution: 
his senses are waning fast; an increasing coldness benumbs 
his limbs; his eyes grow glazed and sightless; his lips are 
parched and parted; and his pallid face assumes an ashen 

[477] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

hue. His afflicted friend kneels in deep affection beside him, 
anxious to catch his dying words. "In that supreme hour, 
his mission accomplished, winning, not losing the cause for 
which he dies; assured through Horatio of the verdict of 
posterity, and calmly fronting the dread tribunal of eternity 
with an inviolate conscience," Hamlet is troubled but by 
one thought, and that thought is for the good, for the peace 
and prosperity of his country. In words, slow, faint, and 
labored, he tells Horatio that he, the last of a royal line, 
chooses prince Fortinbras for the succession. Him, he is 
also to acquaint with the cause that prompted the "re- 
venge." 

In a sense of duty all performed, Hamlet now turns with- 
out regret from this harsh world and all its temporal inter- 
ests to give the few remaining moments of lingering life to 
thoughts of his eternal interests in a better world. The mo- 
ments seem to drag on slowly, as Horatio in vain listens 
hungrily for other words; but, only after hard pressure of 
Hamlet's pulse, does he catch in calm, though feeble and 
almost inaudible accents the last and significant utterance 
of his expiring friend : 

"Farewell, Horatio, Heaven receive my soul." 
These are his last dying words, as found in the original 
text of 1603. In our modern composite version they have been 
substituted by the words, "the rest is silence."* 1 "Alas, silence 
for the lips whose music has had no equal since the birth of 
time ; silence for the voice whose least recorded utterance re- 
mains an inspiration for all the ages ! " It is a silence full ol 
significance, a silence pervading his last and most momentous 
moments in which, concentrating undisturbed all his mental 
energies on his soul, he communes with himself, takes account 

41 Not a few annotators maintain that these words belong to Horatio, who on 
observing Hamlet's inability to speak more, says in sorrow, "the rest 
is silence". 

[478] 



scene ii. HIS DYING MOMENTS 

of himself before his immediate flight to the undiscovered 
country. If the world which he has sacrificed so willingly 
for the sake of sacred duty, is fading from his dimmed eyes, 
nevertheless, in that silence, he is not engulfed in an everlast- 
ing night; for upon the clear mental vision of his soul, re- 
generated and illumined by Christian faith, stream increas- 
ing beams of light from a purer, happier world. All his 
thoughts and affections are fixed on that glorious realm, as it 
opens up in blissful hope before him. It is the spirit world, 
where rules supreme the "Everlasting Judge, who in "even 
handed justice" unerringly rights wrongs, and rewards the 
true and the virtuous. 

In those eventful moments, Hamlet fears no fallen 
spirits, prowling about intent on evil; with no affinity for 
them in life, he spurns them in death. Rather about him 
hover those faithful "guardian spirits," those "angels and 
ministers of grace ' ' whom he loved and honored, and whom, 
in the face of danger, he was wont to invoke so readily. Have 
those glorious spirits come from their happy home to wel- 
come his soul now fluttering on the verge of that mysterious 
world? Is the blissful smile that illumines his face, a recog- 
nition of their presence, a response to their joyous summons? 
Be that as it may, with the dawning of that smile is spent his 
last sigh ; from the mortal tenement his immortal spirit has 
winged its flight. 

With tearful eyes, the true and manly Horatio is bend- 
ing over the lifeless form. He observes that luminous smile 
still lingering on his countenance. Its presence inspires him 
with awe and reverence, and impels him to utter with quiv- 
ering lips, his Christian sentiment in a last fond farewell. 
1 ' Good night, sweet prince ! — peaceful be thy sleep till the 
grand awakening at the end of time: may choiring angels 
wing thy noble spirit to the realms of supernal bliss. ' ' 

[479] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

STARTLING REVELATIONS 

Horatio 's farewell is scarcely uttered, when noisy drums 
announce the approach of Fortinbras with his forces from 
the Polack war. He enters with his officers and the ambas- 
sadors just returned from England. Gazing about bewil- 
dered, he is horror-stricken at the dismal sight. " These 
many corpses," he claims, "cry aloud against ruthless 
slaughter. proud death, how in thy eternal halls, thou 
dost revel over this bloody havoc ! ' ' 

Horatio, in presence of the crowded court, sees that the 
moment is opportune for fulfiling the dying commission of 
his friend. "Let these bodies be placed," he says, "high on 
a stage to public view, and I shall publish Hamlet's story to 
you all and to the yet unknowing world ; ' ' disclose the slain 
monarch 's ' ' cruel, bloody and unnatural acts ; ' ' prove him a 
seducer, murderer, and fratricide; show before your won- 
dering eyes his secret edict for his nephew's immediate exe- 
cution, and how it resulted by "forced cause" in the death 
of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern ; and, lastly, how in the 
presence of his royal court the criminal attempted to des- 
troy Prince Hamlet by means of a treacherous potion, and 
again by an unbated and poisoned sword. When all this has 
been disclosed, let the ghosts of his victims join in chorus with 
the ghost of the elder Hamlet, to proclaim to the citizens of 
Denmark that the slaughter of the King was a just punish- 
ment, inflicted by decree of Heaven, upon a bloody criminal, 
a fratricide, an incestuous usurper, and multi-murderer 
whose living presence was a horrid plague infesting all the 
land. And then, in the eyes of approving Denmark, shall 
Hamlet appear a noble hero, the savior of his country, who, 
before losing his life by treachery, had rid the nation of a 
bloody monster, and thereby restored to harmony the discord 

[480] 



scene ii. HAMLET'S SUCCESSOR 

of the social and moral order, and brought smiling peace 
and happiness to the realm. 

In reply, prince Fortinbras voices the eager desire of all 
to hear the exposition of the King's crimes, and, assuming 
preeminence by virtue of his rank, he orders all the nobles 
to be summoned to the audience. 

"High events as these, 

Strike those that make them; and their story is 
No less in pity, than his glory, which 
Brought them to be lamented." 

HAMLET'S SUCCESSOR 

It is sometimes asserted that the death of Hamlet is the 
natural close of the tragedy ; that its protraction by the after 
entrance of Fortinbras and the ambassadors, is but a drag 
on the interest of the audience; and that, therefore, the 
failure to ring down the curtain on the fall of the protagon- 
ist, deprives the tragedy of its greatest dramatic effect. This 
view may seem plausible, if, concentrating our interest on 
the hero, we lose sight of the completion and perfection of 
the tragedy as a whole. Shakespeare is always true to na- 
ture. Supereminent in his art, he recognized that dramatic 
perfection lies in the truthful interpretation of human life. 
This fundamental principle, at once his inspiration and his 
guide, we see embodied in all his master works. Hence, in 
Lear, in Macbeth, in Julius Caesar, in Romeo and Juliet, and 
in Antony and Cleopatra, as well as in Hamlet, he does not 
close with the fall of the protagonist, but proceeds to com- 
plete each tragedy in accordance with the chief canon of his 
art. Forgetfulness of this dramatic law, has, perhaps, led 
these objectors to consider Fortinbras' entrance after Ham- 
let's death a mere incident, to be omitted or not at will; 
whereas, it is, on the contrary, an element essential to the 
completion and perfection of the play. 

[481] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

If, in the fall of Hamlet and of Claudius, is annihilated a 
noble and powerful race of Kings, poetic justice demands 
that some intrinsic or satisfactory reason be assigned there- 
for ; and such a reason, the Poet finds in the solemn truth of 
an over-ruling Providence, whose divine judgments are at 
times manifested among men. This idea of divine justice 
dominated the renowned dramatists of ancient Greece; in 
their tragedies, they inexorably devoted to destruction any 
royal line attainted by unnatural crimes. Nemesis, or just 
retribution, as unfolded in the world of art, possesses an ele- 
ment of permanency; it represents a principle underlying 
human life. Nemesis is a force which preserves the equili- 
brium of the moral world ; it is a force whose potentiality waxes 
strong in proportion to departure from the law of rectitude ; 
it is a force which acts in the interests of the virtuous, with 
whom we are in sympathy, and to the confusion of the 
wicked, with whom we are in antagonism. 

Though the notion of poetic justice be emphasized in all 
the tragedies of Shakespeare, in none does he portray so well 
as in Hamlet his idea of an over-ruling Providence. "No 
other modern drama leaves a deeper impression of a super- 
human power presiding over a war of irregular and opposing 
forces, and calmly working out its own purpose through the 
baffled, disjointed, and conflicting purpose of human 
agents." 42 

After the will of man had, by force of objective difficul- 
ties, been thwarted in meeting out legal justice to the crimi- 
nal, Heaven itself intervenes to aid in the project. The fall 
of Claudius, it is true, forms the primary act of justice, 
inherent in the tragedy; but there is still another and a sec- 
ondary act. It is the substitution of Fortinbras for the 
extinct line of Hamlet. His claim to the throne of Denmark 

42 H. N. Hudson: "Tragedy of Hamlet", P. XLV. 

[482] 



scene ii. HAMLET'S SUCCESSOR 

was founded on hereditary right. Dispossessed in the person 
of his father by the elder Hamlet, his claim hung over the 
head of the usurper. When the fratricidal monarch falls in 
penalty of his crimes, and with him the line of Hamlet becomes 
extinct, then we see prince Fortinbras entering upon the 
scene, to assert his just claim : 

For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune; 

I have some rights of memory in this kingdom, 

Which now to claim, my vantage doth invite me. 

By recognizing his claim, and more than once alluding 
to it, the Poet has already carefully prepared us for the 
final entrance of the Norwegian prince. Early in the drama, 
Horatio exposes how King Fortinbras was forced to yield 
the crown to the elder Hamlet ; and later, we hear the com- 
plaint of Claudius against young Fortinbras, who was then 
intent upon invading Denmark to assert by force of arms his 
own hereditary right to the throne. The claim, moreover, 
is admitted by Hamlet in his last will and testament. It is 
made at the most solemn moment, when, by affirming with 
"dying voice" the right of the Norwegian prince, he makes 
a just and honorable amende for any act of injustice of which 
his father may have been guilty. 

Thus the avenging justice of an over-ruling Providence, 
is seen not only to strike down the criminal usurper, but also 
to prepare the way for the crowning of the just inheritor. 
Such is the complete solution of the complex drama. Look- 
ing back upon that scene of bloody havoc, we see a new dawn 
looming over the valley of the shadow of death ; and, as the 
princely Fortinbras marches into view, that dawn ripens into 
a glad sunrise, the harbinger of a better day, when the reign 
of virtue and of justice shall bring to distracted Denmark, a 
new life blessed with the calm of innocence and peace. 

[483] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET act v. 

The tragedy aptly concludes with the eulogy of Fortin- 
bras over the corpse of the fallen hero. If fortune had 
crowned Hamlet King, he would have proved himself a most 
royal ruler. The last and noblest scion of a warrior and 
kingly race, his shall be the honors of royal obsequies. Though 
fallen, he was yet victorious. Let war's shrill clarion trum- 
pet the fact aloud! Let his corpse, decked in a warrior's 
full panoply, be borne away in triumphal march, with music *s 
martial strains and all the rites of war. When, in fine, the 
curtain falls, as booming cannons cry aloud his mourning, 
one is apt to reflect that of all his sea-king forefathers, not 
one was more worthy, more gifted and heroic than this 
prince of Denmark, the last and noblest of a royal line. 



484 j 



EPILOGUE 

Hamlet has been justly called a tragedy of thought or 
reflection. In the very opening scene it seems to throw upon 
us a spell, which induces a reflective mood in harmony with 
its action. As it unfolds itself, we continue to brood over its 
multiplying vicissitudes and awful enigmas of life, which 
action further deepens, and thought renders more perplex- 
ing. The spell still continues, even after the curtain falls on 
the appalling spectacle of horrors; for brooding over the 
unexpected fatal issues, our minds are troubled and con- 
fused by a thought which is irrepressible, the thought of 
the moral incongruities involved in the catastrophe. Oppres- 
sive indeed, and enigmatical must be the thought to the un- 
believer. Eecognizing no hereafter, he cannot even hope for 
future redress of the ills of life and the travesties of human 
justice. 

Different, however, is the effect upon the Christian-, his 
mind, illumined by revealed religious truths, soars above 
and beyond his own narrow horizon. He knows that this 
life is not the "be all and the end all" of human existence; 
that man's transient days on earth are but a probation to 
prepare for better and eternal years ; that in this probation, 
man in the exercise of his freedom, shapes his own eternal 
destiny in proportion as he uses his free will for good, ot 
abuses it for evil; and that his reward or punishment is 
commonly delayed until the harvest, when the cockle shall be 
sifted from the wheat. 

The solution then lies in the religion of Hamlet, and as 
that religion was Shakespeare 's own, its principles actuated 
his thoughts and sentiments, and gave the tragedy an out- 

[485] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

come in conformity therewith. Hence, the play, while not 
professedly religious, reveals, nevertheless, a deep, silent, and 
mysterious under-current, which suggests the presence of 
some vaster and invisible power at work throughout the 
tragedy. That pervading religious idea originates from the 
first with the advent of the solemn and majestic visitor from 
the spirit world. The mandate which is imposed upon the hero 
dominates him in thought and deed through the drama. That 
religious idea deepens with the progress of the action, as we 
see the tragic character often recognizing in incidents un- 
foreseen and surprising, the secret hand of Providence, and 
resigning himself to His guidance. That same idea is, in fine, 
emphasized at the hero's death, when angels are supposed to 
bear away his soul to eternal rest. 

It was that same religious idea that enabled the Poet 
to abandon for this once, in favor of his own loved creation, 
the beaten path of tragedy, and so turn our crushed and re- 
bellious feelings of dismay and protest into sentiments of 
gratitude and gladness. That idea empowered him to lift in 
part the veil of futurity, so as to allow us to perceive that 
Hamlet's harsh fate is not the ultimate truth concerning him ; 
that, though fallen, he is in a manner untouched by the doom 
that overtakes him. The tragic world is but a partial view of a 
whole beyond our material vision. "The fury of its conflict 
with all its errors, woes, and waste is not half the truth, nor 
the final reality, but only a small fragment of a greater 
whole, where death counts for little, but greatness of soul for 
much." 43 

Hamlet, as the Poet suggests, was not so much deprived of 
life as set free from mortal bondage. Death only ushered him 
into that vaster glorious sphere of immortal existence, where 
in spite of seeming failure, the brave and virtuous are 

iS Cf. Bradley's "Shakespearean Tragedies", p. 174. 

[486] 



EPILOGUE 

after heroic strife crowned with victory. To the Christian, 
therefore, the mystery, or enigma is solved by those divine 
revelations which partially reveal that undiscovered country, 
where reigns in "even-handed justice," the "Everlasting 
Judge, who renders to every man according to his works." 
Hence, for the moral incongruities displayed in the catas- 
trophe, the Christian, with mind illumined by divine rays, 
finds a solution which, soothing the tumult of his heart, brings 
peace after the storm. These revealed truths give a moral 
scope and significance to the drama. That they were deeply 
graven on the Poet's Christian mind, appears from the fre- 
quent reference in his many dramas to the Last or General 
Judgment. Often in his youthful days, when at worship with 
his Christian parents, young Shakespeare must have studied 
the large mural paintings which adorned the Trinity Chapel 
at Stratford. Its largest and most distinctive fresco was in 
full view of the nave above the great chancel arch, and, rich 
in details, represented in allegory the Last Judgment, or Day 
of Doom. Impressions made in younger days last longest. 44 
It is this portrayal of the deep religious mystery, which 
over-shadows the protagonist, both in his meditative, solitary 
walks on the shores of the spirit world, as well as in his 
conscientious struggles for moral good against moral evil, 
that makes him reflect the immortal hopes and aspirations 
which have animated suffering humanity through all the ages. 
In this light the hero becomes but a type of myriads of mortals 
who in a sinful world bear the sorrows of mankind. In conse- 
quence, the tragedy, awe-inspiring, attractive, and instinct 
with burning thoughts common to our race, has won a popu- 
larity which the flight of time, instead of diminishing, has only 
deepened and made universal. 

44 The fresco, still visible and well preserved in 1802, was later, in a general 
renovation of the Chapel, covered with a coat of whitewash. As the paint- 
ing was upon plaster, it is now probably lost to the world. But, fortun- 
ately, copies of the fresco had been made by Thomas Fisher, F. S. A., and 
these survive bound in a rare volume. 

[487] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

Though Hamlet 's soul is not avowedly at stake, it is none 
the less so in reality. Its eternal loss or gain ever present to 
his mind, seems to haunt him through the drama and to loom 
up in the background of every Act in larger or smallei 
proportions. From the start, we are fascinated by his charac- 
ter. His noble nature, adorned with high intellectual gifts, 
and moral worth, and beauty, so wins our admiration and our 
sympathy, that in watchful eagerness, we accompany him in 
his moral struggles with ever increasing interest. We see 
him in an insufferable mental agony, aweary of the world and 
of life, sighing for death, and yet resolving in Christian forti- 
tude, to bear ' ' the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks 
that flesh is heir to," rather than transgress the law of the 
Almighty. We see him, delicate of conscience and alert 
against the wiles of the evil spirit, testing the nature and 
veracity of the ghost. We see him in filial devotion, pledging 
himself to the work of ' ' revenge, ' ' for which he sacrifices the 
world, life, and all, save the eternal welfare of his immortal 
soul. We see him sorely tempted in almost daily conflicts, 
when he beats down the insurrection of the man against the 
superman, an insurrection of blind irascible passions, which 
in rebellion against reason and conscience, urge him to throw 
his sense of Christian duty to the winds, and at once to strike 
the criminal in a personal revenge, even though thereby he 
taint his immortal soul. We see him, resolved upon a punish- 
ment approved by Christian principles of justice, seeking 
zealously for proofs which will justify his act before the eyes 
of his fellowmen, his conscience, and his God, and on this 
appearing hopeless, turning to an all-ruling Providence, 
whose Divinity shapes our destinies if we but trust in Him. 
We see him a solitary, wandering amid the noisy and irreli- 
gious crew of an immoral court, alone concerned with his 
unworthy mother, whom, from a sense of filial devotion and of 

[488] 



EPILOGUE 

Christian piety, he labors to awaken from a sinful love, to a 
sense of shame and of peril to her soul. We see him every- 
where in sharp contrast with the powers of evil, a noble Chris- 
tian youth, who, though afflicted by the deepest melancholy 
at the sight of wickedness triumphant, maintains, like the lone 
rose in the desert waste, the fragrance of integrity. We see 
him at last, when, after pardoning in a Christian spirit of 
forgiveness the murderous act of his treacherous friend, he 
falls a sacrifice to sacred duty; but he falls victorious over 
evil, and the consciousness of this fact prompts him to appeal 
from time to eternity. 

Our interest in the Prince survives the catastrophe. Our 
sympathy, which he has won, and even our affection, compel 
us to follow him in spirit to the life beyond the grave. That 
mourning cortege with martial strains, and roar of cannon, 
and all the glittering pomp of war, may fetter the mind of the 
worldling or unbeliever who cannot soar above the perishable ; 
but the Christian man of faith accompanies in thought the 
hero's immortal spirit in its flight to the world invisible. The 
storm clouds rolling by, have left the skies impressively ser- 
ene, and in the calm, deep silence of the scene, the Christian 
peers in fancy far beyond those twinkling sentinels of Heaven 
into the spirit realm where he may fondly hope that the soul 
of such a noble man of nature has safely reached the haven of 
celestial rest. His was a painful conflict, his the victory, and 
his now a crown enduring with the eternal years. Let our 
farewell to the noble-minded Prince, be re-echoed in the 
tender and inspiring words of his own true friend : 

"Good night, sweet prince; 
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!" 



[489] 



APPENDIX 

NOTE ON THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE AND JUSTI- 
FICATION IN RELATION TO THE CONFLICT 
OF THE KING AT PRAYER (page 315) 

Radically opposed to the notion of justification by faith alone 
is the doctrine of the Church. She teaches that man in his very 
creation was by the bounty of God elevated to a supernatural state 
and ennobled by certain supernatural gifts and graces which, tran- 
scending his human nature, were in no manner due to it. He was, 
moreover, free from concupiscence, so that his sensuous appetites 
were perfectly subject to reason, and this freedom he was to trans- 
fer to posterity. This absolute dominion of reason over the ap- 
petites of his lower nature, was not, however, a perfection natural 
to his being, but wholly a preternatural gift, that is a gift not due 
to human nature, nor was it, on the other hand, the essence of 
original justice which consisted in sanctifying grace. 

When man by sin forfeited his supernatural gifts he, never- 
theless, retained all that belonged to his natural being as man. His 
sin of disobedience is commonly called original, because it formally 
consists in the privation of original justice by reason of the primor- 
dial sin of our common nature in the person of our first forefather. 
From original sin, followed, however, an inclination to evil, because 
of the loss of the restraining elements of original justice ; for man 's 
reason, by means of his supernatural gifts, perfectly restrained the 
forces of his inferior nature; and the subtraction of these gifts 
meant the loss of these restraints, and this loss is called "the wound- 
ing of our nature." (St. Thorn. I. 2. Q. 85.) 

In falling from his high estate, man's lower nature rebelled 
against his rational soul; his lower appetites began to lust against 
his spirit; and concupiscence, now unchecked, obscured the mind, 
and without destroying freedom of will, nevertheless, rendered it 
less firm in resisting evil and in pursuing good. Hence, if man's 
fallen nature be compared with his former state of original justice, 
he may be said to be wounded in his nature, or to be changed for the 
worse in the exercise of his powers both of soul and body. 

Concupiscence in its widest acceptation is any yearning of the 
soul for good; but in its strict and specific acceptation, it signifies 

[491] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

a desire of the lower appetite contrary to reason. To understand 
how the sensuous and rational appetite can be opposed, it should 
be borne in mind that their natural objects are altogether different. 
The object of the former is the gratification of the senses; the object 
of the latter is the good of the whole rational nature, and consists 
in the subordination of the lower to the rational faculties and again 
in the subordination of man to God, his supreme good and ultimate 
end. But the lower appetite being of itself unrestrained, pursues 
sensuous gratifications independently of the understanding, and 
without regard to the good of the higher faculties. Hence, desires 
contrary to the .real good and order of reason may, and often do 
arise in it, previous to the attention of the mind, and solicit the 
will to assent while they more or less hinder reason from consider- 
ing their lawfulness or unlawfulness. Such is concupiscence in its 
strict and specific sense. As long however, as deliberation is not 
impeded completely, the rational will is able to resist such desires, 
and withhold consent. If in fact the will resists, a struggle ensues: 
the sensuous appetite rebelliously demanding its gratification, reason 
on the contrary clinging to its own spiritual interests, and asserting 
its control. "The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit 
against the flesh." 

From these considerations, it is plain that the opposition be- 
tween appetite and reason is natural in man, and, though an imper- 
fection, is not a corruption of human nature. Concupiscence is an 
effect of original sin, and inclines to sin, but its inordinate 
desires have not in themselves the nature of sin, and though it be 
true that they are temptations to sin, becoming the stronger and 
the more frequent, the oftener they are indulged, nevertheless, they 
cannot contract the nature of sin unless consent is given them by 
the will; for sin, being the free and deliberate transgression of the 
law of God, can only be in man's rational will. Though by the 
merits of Christ, original sin is wiped out by the sacrament of 
baptism, and the soul is cleansed and justified again by the infusion 
of sanctifying grace, yet freedom from concupiscence is not restored 
to man by this sacrament any more than is the gift of immortality^ 
abundant grace is, however, given by which man may triumph over 
rebellious sense, and merit life everlasting. 

Rejecting the new doctrine of the "Reformers" that concupi- 
scence is original sin, that it corrupts human nature and destroys 
free will, the Church, moreover denies that a sinner is justified be- 
fore God by faith alone. Faith, it is true, is the first subjective 
and indispensable condition for justification, and the root from 
which God's approval must spring. Both the Catholic and Pro- 
testant Christian believe that for salvation man must adhere to 

[ 492 ] 



APPENDIX 

Christ, and enter into a spiritual connection with Him; but with 
the Catholic this adherence is not a mere connection of ideas, nor a 
mere recognition of religious truths, nor a mere theoretic and naked 
faith, but a vivifying practical faith which, in the renewal or re- 
generation of spirit, changes the sinner from an unjust to a just 
man, and makes him an adopted son of God. Faith is the basis, 
but sanctifying grace which with charity and other supernatural 
virtues, is unfused into the soul, is the principle or substantial force 
of this regeneration. Love must vivify faith before man becomes 
truly pleasing to God. Faith in love and love in faith form an in- 
separable unity in the work of the sinner's justification. 

Confusion often arises from the fact that non-Catholics are 
wont to consider the remission of sin and the justification of the 
sinner as two separate acts, whereas Catholic faith teaches that the 
infusion of grace and the remission of sin, like the illumination of 
space and the dispersion of darkness, is but one and the same simul- 
taneous act. Sin and sanctifying grace cannot coexist in the soul; 
for mutually destructive, the one banishes the other. Sanctifying 
grace is a supernatural gift which, by infusing through the merits 
of Christ a new spiritual life and image of God into the soul, en- 
nobles man, and makes him just and an adopted son of heaven, 
capable of doing works meritorious for eternal life. These super- 
natural gifts can be forfeited only by sin which is called mortal, 
because it kills the supernatural life of the soul. When man, there- 
fore, by grievous offense against God, forfeits these supernal gifts, 
he deforms and befouls his soul by the leprosy of sin, which renders 
him hideous in the eyes of God. This sin with its guilt and con- 
tamination is eradicated only when God deigns through the merits 
of Christ to infuse anew into the soul the grace of justification ; and 
this grace, by restoring again the supernatural life lost by the 
sinner, necessarily banishes sin and its deformities from the soul, 
and regains for him the friendship of God. 

Hence, forgiveness of sin and justification of the sinner, are 
one and the same act of grace in the soul; for the one involves 
the other. Justification, in a negative sense, is the remission of sin, 
but in a positive sense, it is the actual cleansing or justifying of 
the soul by the infusion of sanctifying grace When God, therefore, 
declares a sinner to be just and pleasing to Him, it is not, be- 
cause He ignores the hideous leprosy of sin in the soul, or covers 
it from view by a mantle, but because He really and truly makes 
the sinner just by the infusion of sanctifying grace which by its 
nature necessarily destroying the guilt of sin and its direful effects, 
restores to man his supernatural gifts, and makes him truly holy 
and pleasing in the sight of God. When Christ said to the leper, 

[493] 



THE RIDDLES OF HAMLET 

"be thou made clean," the unfortunate man was at once cleansed 
from his leprosy; so when God justifies a sinner, he of course makes 
him just by cleansing his soul from every taint of injustice which 
was induced by the leprosy of sin. 

In the work of justification, according to Catholic principles, 
concur two operations, the one divine and the other human; and 
these naturally pervade each other so that there results but one 
act. By preceding grace God awakens and excites the smner, 
and offers His aid to uplift him after his fall ; if the sinner 
accepts the divine assistance, he is in turn accepted by the Holy 
Spirit. 

This interworking of the Holy Spirit and of man freely co- 
operating in the process of justification may be briefly noted. It 
is the mercy of God alone that offers to man supernatural happiness. 
He makes this offer known through the preaching of His Church, 
and accompanies it with an interior stirring grace. If man co- 
operates with this grace, he believes the truths of divine revelation 
with a certainty that nothing can shake. He sees reasons to fear God's 
justice, and throws himself on God's mercy, detesting his sin and 
trusting in the merits of Christ. Thus by the co-operation of grace 
and man's free will, the way is prepared for justification; and pro- 
vided that man puts no obstacle in the way, the Holy Spirit works 
his justification by pouring His grace and charity into his soul. 

Though justification be complete and the same in all the just, 
nevertheless, the sanctification of each man progresses in proportion 
to his own supernaturally aided efforts ; for the new spirtual life im- 
planted in the soul, enables man to exercise himself in truly good 
works which through Christ merit an increase of sanctifying grace, 
and this increase, measured by man's individual spiritual efforts, 
is more replete in some than in others. 



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